You read that correctly. Read it first before you knock it. I promise you, you will be pleasantly surprised, and possibly shocked. Believe me, I was shocked too. Many of you probably already know that you can make Pounded Yam in a Food Processor. Click HERE for instructions. I would like to take a little credit for re-discovering that and bringing it back to people’s consciousness. Just a little credit. Hahahahahaha. Well, there has been some progress to that effect. I used to believe only a dough blade could produce smooth, stretchy pounded yam, But I have been proven wrong. I have even tested it myself countless times, and yes people, the knife blade produces gorgeous pounded yam.
Another tool you can use to make stress free and hot made in a flash pounded yam is to use a Stand Mixer. Yes, the type for making cakes, dough etc.
You only need two attachments. The dough hook and the flat beater.
dough hook on the left, beater on the right.
Some say use the beater to mash the yam and then finish off with the dough hook to form it into a ball, others reverse the process. I have seen living proof of both, so choose whichever method works for you. I will soon be in possession of a stand mixer, and I will make pounded yam and post pictures.
Do, you know that you can also use a Hand Mixer to make pound yam? Yes you can. If your hand mixer comes with the long thin dough hook, it will also make very stretchy pounded yam in minutes. I have even experimented with my Hand Blender. Not the blender itself mind you, but the chopper bowl. Most hand blenders come with 2 extra attachments. The whisk and the chopper bowl. I have a picture of the chopper bowl HERE. It is quick and handy kitchen tool to cut down chopping time to seconds. You can also use it to make pounded yam.
the long bit on top is the hand blender motor. It has removable attachments. In this picture, I attached the big chopper bowl. See the knife blade in the bowl? Yes, it makes pounded yam. Will put up pictures in my Afia Efere (white soup) post.
Today though, I am going totally off-board. You have to praise the ingenuity of Nigerian women. A member of SYTCC, Titi posted a picture of pounded yam made in her blender, but not just an ordinary blender but a Ninja blender. A Ninja blender is a little special because the blade is not flat, like traditional blenders. Its own blade is really long and thin. See picture below. When I saw the picture, I said of course, this can make pounded yam easy peasy. This is not a traditional blender.
image courtesy: www.ninjakitchen.com
A few weeks later, someone came with a claim that she made pounded yam using a traditional blender, and I was really quite skeptical. Unfortunately the pictures attached weren’t clear and I shrugged it off, but recently other women have been making claims, but with no pictures attached and I thought hmmmmn, this one I have to try to believe. Not many things challenge me like food does. To say I was astounded is probably an understatement. I had to use the Motion Capture mode of my camera to shoot live pictures, so you would believe it.
I can confidently tell you that it works, and I will point at how, with extra tips and what to look out for. If you feel you have been marginalised, because you don’t have any of the devices I stated above, well you are in luck now. Welcome to the Club of Real Pounded Yam eaters. I have to insist though that by watching how it makes this, your blender has to have a powerful motor, because it will struggle at the beginning and possibly burn out. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone having to buy a new blender. I will go so far as to recommend from 300W – 400W upwards. I stand corrected, I had initially written 600W. I always thought my blender was 600W. I just checked the Philips Website, and it is 300W. If you have a low wattage blender, like mine, unless you have been using it for ages and trust it, be careful. Caveat Emptor i.e. be warned. Oh, one more big ups for my blender. I have been using it since 2007 and it has done everything. It can also be used to peel the skin off beans. Yes it can, Yes it ca. Click HERE for instructions
How To
1. Cut the yam into pieces and boil. When it has cooked through, cut into smaller pieces, using a table knife, while the yams are still in the pot. This is essential. You want to make sure they are hot, so at no time should you take the yams out and cut on a plate. Turn the heat down to low, to ensure the yams remain hot and go get your blender.
2. Add 2 – 3 pieces of yam to the blender, cover it and turn it on for a few seconds and stop. DO NOT add water. Repeat it again for a few seconds and stop. This is to protect the engine. With each session of the engine being on, you will see the blades crush the yam and start to form a ball.
Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: i will recommend that you experiment first with this, to see how it works. Don’t get too excited. Start with a few pieces from start to finish, then you can get bolder. See pictures below. The yams have been crushed and are forming into a ball. Give yourself a few seconds to be amazed. Hehehehehehe. Keep at it for a few seconds and that ball will turn smooth and proper like pounded yam. I was too amazed to take the picture of the complete product.
3. Scoop out the ball, and start again. This time, with 3 pieces, repeat step two, but this time, after the first few seconds of blending, when you can see that the yams have crushed, open the blender and leave it open. See picture below. Once you have this, you know you are good to go. Stop the blender, add a few more pieces of yam and repeat the dance again, until you have quite enough crushed yams in the blender, then you keep the engine running and let it pull together.
4. The crushed yam pieces will go from the picture you can see above, to the one below. Here is where my Motion Capture component comes in. See people, how shocking is that? As the engine is rotating the blades, the crushed yam will be pulled together to form a ball, and that ball will be rolling around, and rolling around, and stretching to form pounded yam. The flipping thing works.
Still in shock? Enlarge the picture if you want. Loooool.
See it rolling and stretching, and rolling and stretching, and rolling and stretching. All this is happening in a very short space of time.
…………….and there you have it. Pounded Yam. Do you believe now?
Because you are going to have to scoop out with your hands, it will be a little messy on the plate, so I advice you scoop it out unto a plastic sheet, you know the types we wrap starchy solids in, or even a rinsed supermarket bag. Once you have all the pounded yam done, cover it in the plastic wrap, and mould in your hands to look pretty, and that’s all.
Yes, it is probably a little fiddly than the other devices, because you have to start slow first before it kicks into a ball, but who cares really. You get your hot pounded yam, without spending extra money on another kitchen device. The beauty of this is that, I not only used old leftover yam which had been sitting on my kitchen cart for days in this cold weather, making it even more tough, it was also the bottom part of the yam, which traditionally is quite difficult to make pounded yam with because it tends to be much tougher and more fibrous. So, even with tough yam, it works. Well, this isn’t manual pounding, an engine is involved. BOOM!!!!
We now have a list of devices, pick which ever you want
Hand Mixer
Hand Blender Chopper Bowl- see above.
Ninja Blender
See v
Traditional blender
I can already imagine many of you rushing out to buy yam this weekend. Well good, it’s about time. Throw away your packet of Poundo Flour while you are at it. Please try it and send me pictures. Welcome to the club of The Real Pounded Yam Eaters.
Dooney, this has been a debate in our home for ages never tried, I think I might try it n if it works I will come and find you and give you the biggest hug and kiss ever 🙂 AMA ooooo AMA 🙂
Aaaaaaw, my Ghanian sister, please try and let me know
Thank you for this Dunnie.I was thinking about using my Ninja blender to make pounded yam last night and my husband was like you better don’t spoil it, you know it’s expensive.I have the type shown above, I will post the picture with my Kale Riro when I’m done.You are simply the best…
Oh, wonderful. Please post the picture
So Dunnie, I finally made my pounded yam tonight . Permit me to say this, my Ninja blender is the best, I didn’t have to do a lot, I just put everything at once and it came out really good.I am still dancing Azonto:-).I have pictures but can’t post them here for you to see.
Aaaaaw, well done and welcome to the club of real pounded yam eaters
Sometimes the best part of your blog is the comments. We really do appreciate you Dunni. I’m a poundo flour lover mainly because yam is so expensive where I am but I’m tempted to convert lol
Please convert o, it is worth it
Dooney, this is fab! May be we should sell online yam this wkend. Just saw few friends buying yam n that’s how I got d tip to check this
out. U are cooking girl. KUDOS N TNX Xxx
I knew it. I knew it. I knew loads of people will be buying yam this weekend. Loooool. Happy to help. I hope it turns out great for you.
My blender clearly says do not pour hot contents into blender. should i diss this warning as we Africans usually do a lot or should 🙂 or i wait for my yam to cool down.
LOL. Errrr, ignore that thing abeg. Mine also says the same for my food processor. It has been churning hot pounded yam since 2011
Dis woman u re too much!
Aaaaaw, thanks
its awesome, and its very good hope is not stressful. thanks a lot i de enjoy you keep up the good work.
Thank you Felicia
dooney!!!!!! 😀 😀 😀
i just tried this and it worked beautifully! i have been dancing in my kitchen for the past 5 mins, the pounded yam don cold sef!
many thanks to you dea for giving a new dimension to nigerian cooking 🙂
Aaaaaw, well done you. I smiled when I read this. Enjoy the Euphoria. No more Poundo flour for you
dooney i tried this twice, thou it was edible, it had some lumps.what did i do wrong?
thanks for bringing out d better cook in me.
The yams were probably not soft enough. If it still has white threads in it, when you break a piece of boiled yam into two, you need to let it cook for slightly longer. SOrry to hear about that. Just yesterday, I saw the results of 2 people who tried it and it was perfect. I hope you try again. Big Hugs
Hi Dooney, I tried the pounded Yam using my 500W Kenwood blender, it turned out too sticky and not firm like it is in ur picture. It was runny kind of. Had to wait for it to cool down before it became hard and started tasting like real pounded Yam, because at first it was like the mashed potatoes u get at KFC just + the stickiness. Na so e suppose be abi I made a mistake sumwhere? Thnks.
Sticky pounded yam is probably due to the yams boiling for too long, till the point the water left in the pot is thick and slimy. When you pound yams that are at that point, your result will likely be sticky and very runny, almost like mashed potatoes. Sorry to hear about that, I hope you try it again, and watch the yam closely.
I definitely will try again by God’s grace, and that until I become a pro. Thanks a lot dooney.
You will with practice. All the best
My blender stopped working since I made my (mashed) pounded Yam yesterday. Oh my! Why did I get mine all wrong? 🙁
I think it was one or two things or even both. The yams were not soft enough and you left the blender running for too long. You only need it on for a few seconds and a time. Sorry about that
I got my blender fixed and tried again, this time, I put it on for a few seconds at a time. Yeepeee! I got it right this time. Thanks Dooney.
Well done Hafsah, pleased you had the courage to try again
I am so in love with you Dunni (no homo). I used your recipe for ogbono, fried and jollof rice a while back and mehn, hubby was really impressed. I’ve also been making peppersoup frequently after I read your blog. There so many recipes I want to try out but I’m on a diet *sadface* and I don’t like to cook much when I’m on a diet because I love to eat, I don’t have the discipline of cooking and not eating. God bless your good work.
Aaaaaw, thank you Blessing. Amen to your pryaers, and I wish you the same
Dear Dunni, nice one, I cant wait to try it, lol.
Please do and let me know
Wow Dooneyyyyy,
Love, love, love….
Made my pounded yam yesterday using a 350W Binatone blender. I did my happy dance while at it. My dad could not believe it because I earlier told him we would need a food processor which is obviously more expensive, all thanks to you we don’t need to spend so much to get stress free pounded yam.
Since you listed a Hand blender Chopper bowl as one of the devices that can be used, can I use a mannual swizzz prozzz chopper to get the same result – pounded yam?
Thanks again.
You know what Jennifer, I am going to use your comment as reference from henceforth. I got many doubting thomases regarding this post, and yours is just a shining example. A bin atone 35oW blender for tham matter. You are so brave, and I have to commend you seriously. WELL DONE. Since it is manual, I doubt if it will work. You can prove me wrong though and try it.
I’m too amazed.
Come April 10, hubby will be super duper happy.
Yes o. he will
I’m already excited. Pounding isn’t my strong point but love pounded yam. Quick question: if I’m going to use a hand mixer with the dough hook, do I not need to use the beater at all? Thanks
I tell you, this works. Just be careful with your blender. Only leave it on for a few seconds at a time. All the best
Waoh! Will try this and post pictures. So enjoying this page. U’re doin a great job. Well done.
Thank you Eloho. Please try it and let me know
Hi Dunni, thanks a lot, your website has really been helpful and I send the link to friends like I’m a marketer. I ran my ken wood for long and it got spoilt even though the outcome was fabulous and I’m still happy about it. Please what products of food processor and blender would you recommend. Thanks
Aaaaaaaw, thank you Toun for spreading the word. I truly appreciate it. I know you would probably wince again, but I will recommend Kenwood again, or Philips. Those are the two brands I would trust.
its still ve particles or lumps and blender is smelling as if about to burn,so scared you know.
Stop using the machine then. Looks like the yams were either not soft enough, or you put too much
Thank u Dooney. I sure must try this.