Is making pap still difficult for you? Do people laugh at you while making pap? Don’t be depressed, believe me, you can boldly prepare pap yourself without consulting anyone. You can also decide to get, ready-made corn flour powder from an expert. There are some people that likes it the easier way so this less stress and also don’t forget the principle, wherever you derive some advantages, there must be some disadvantages too. Preparing pap from scratch gives some added benefits over buying already made cornflower powder. The already made pap do have a sour taste compared to the one freshly made by you.
Also, traditionally processed pap popularly known as “Ogi” in Yoruba, “Akamu” in Igbo has its unique sour taste. It can be eaten with well-prepared Akara, fried plantain, fried yam, beans, and bread etc. Pap is a food that is very good for adults and babies alike so now will be writing more on how to prepare fresh, rich, and sour-tasted pap.
Before going into a detailed discussion of pap preparation, it is necessary to understand why it is so popular among people. So what are the health benefits of pap? It has many nutritious content for an example it contains huge source of carbohydrates. It is easily digestible and often recommended for athletes to keep them running throughout the day, other benefits are:
Blood pressure: pap contains appreciably high potassium and sodium making it a good food for high blood pressure patients. If you want to avoid being hypertensive. It can also prevent you from any kind of health issue that could come.
Kidney booster: the integral part of the human body is the kidney. If the kidney gets damaged that means the whole body is under pressure. You know that in the real sense of humans something that can lead to the failure of an integral part “of the kidney” is: uric acid, urea, toxins, waste, and other harmful substances. I’m happy to make you know that drinking pap, gets rid of these substances assisting in the elimination of unwanted elements in the body through urine.
Promotes healthy pregnancy and lowers the risk of neural tube defects: Pap is very essential in promoting healthy pregnancy in a woman. How? Pap contains folic acid according to health professionals. A lack of this folic acid may lead to underweight babies being born, as well as neutral tube defects in newborns, not only that, it also helps the production of breast milk after childbirth. If you take the time to visit a woman with a new baby you will confirm this.
How To Prepare Pap
Now that we have seen some of the health benefits it is time to see how it is prepared. There are some utensils/equipment necessary and should be available for the process of making pap from scratch are they are; bowls, cracked dry corn, stove or gas, clean water, stick, etc. You can improvise with any item available in your home while following these steps:
- Peel and place the dry corn inside the bowl, a cracked one is preferable, because, it will take a very small time to ferment.
- Soak corn in water, the volume of water used depends on the quantity of peeled corn placed in a bowl. It will soak for about four to five days.
- Remove the corn from the water. Wash it perfectly with clean water in a clean bowl like four to five times to make it, neat. Many pap out there in the market have bad smell because it wasn’t washed well so in order to have a good pap, you need to wash it thoroughly. Make sure you use a sieve to remove it from the soaked bowl because of sand that might settle at the bottom of the bowl. Make sure you wash the bowl thoroughly because of the particles too, before you return the corn to it and cover it.
- Take it to where you will blend or grind it, it is advisable to use a powerful grinding machine, so that it will be grinded smoothly. Before grinding the corn make sure you find/buy a sieving cloth called aso ogi in Yoruba.
- After grinding the corn the next process is to sieve it using the sieving cloth in order to remove the pap from the corn chaff. When the sieving is done then leave it for like two/three days to assume a unique taste. It has turned to pap now (ogi from scratch).
After making pap, you can now prepare it to be eaten or drink. However, to prepare it to drink or eat take these steps:
- Boil clean water
- Mix the thick pap with little water and make it is very thick (if it is not thick the pap will not come out nicely)
- Pour boiled water on it, it will rise, and stir it until it becomes thicker. Then it has become drinkable pap.
Lastly, having a pap prepared has a lot of health benefits. Get it prepared from scratch to maintain its uniqueness while cooking it for drinking or eating. You need it in all ramifications due to its health benefits and it is very straight and simple to make and prepared.