Making Ngalax

Once upon a time, we made ngalax...

 

Ngalax is a traditional Easter drink/dessert.

 

Ingredients: monkey bread fruit (what's used to make bouye), peanut butter, sugar, water, nutmeg, vanilla flavoring, coconut flavoring, thiakary (small balls of millet flour - they kind of look like Grape-Nuts), butter...I think that's all.

 

In case you're wondering, yes, I know it sounds like a really odd combination, but I do actually like it.

 

 

Ready to start! :)

 

 

 

Stirring a touch of water into the thiakary before steaming it

 

 

The thiakary gets wrapped in cloth and steamed in a couscousier (which is also used to steam, as you might suspect, couscous)

 

 

After the thiakary was steamed, she added butter and nutmeg

 

 

 

Mixing the peanut butter with the monkey bread fruit and water

 

 

Ruth was having way too much fun getting her hand messy

 

 

The liquid was strained three times

 

 

Second straining

 

 

Third straining

 

 

 

Waiting...

 

After the final straining, we added the other ingredients (sugar and flavorings), then stirred in the thiakary and poured it all into bottles.

 

It was quite a time-consuming process.  We started around 10:30 and by the time everything was cleaned up, it was about 4:00.  Granted, we did stop for a bit to have lunch, and we did run into a couple glitches along the way (like not enough filtered water, and no pots that were big enough, both of which necessitated a walk around the corner to Rachel's apartment).  But it was a fun experience.

 

And they all lived happily ever after...