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Cereals and bread from West Africa

Fura (spiced millet dumpling)fura

Pearl millet is steeped, dehulled and wet-milled with spices, mainly ginger, and the dough is left 12 to 18 hours to sour. Large balls of the sour dough are cooked, pounded into a sticky mass and shaped into small balls, which are mashed into fermented milk (nunu) to make fura de nunu.

Fully documentedCereals and bread24 h – 30 h

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTraditional household process with no fixed amounts.
Pearl milletThe 'gero' variety is the one most makers use[jideani2001]
GingerThe most important spice; spices are an essential ingredient[jideani2001]
WaterFor steeping and wet milling[amankona2016]
Fermented milk (nunu) and sugarTo serve; sugar is added to taste[owusu2013]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 30 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaClose-up: water moving into a grainpH 5.9–6.1 → 4.89

What changes: Millet grains steep in water, which turns sour as lactic bacteria multiply

Step 1 of 6
Steep the millet
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 5.9–6.1 → 4.89
Measured
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
L. fermentum

Output: steeped millet.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

lactic acid bacteria rise from 3–4 to 8–10 log CFU/ml in the steep water; coliforms do not fall

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Pearl millet is steeped, dehulled and wet-milled with spices, mainly ginger, and the dough is left 12 to 18 hours to sour. Large balls of the sour dough are cooked, pounded into a sticky mass and shaped into small balls, which are mashed into fermented milk (nunu) to make fura de nunu. Made in 6 steps over 24 h – 30 h. The longest step, ferment the dough, takes 12–18 h (Owusu-Kwarteng J. 2013). Limosilactobacillus fermentum, dominant at the end of the dough fermentation at all eight production sites studied and Weissella confusa, Pediococcus acidilactici, Limosilactobacillus reuteri, Ligilactobacillus salivarius, Lactiplantibacillus paraplantarum do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12–18 hReported[owusu2013]Ferment the dough
AciditypH 5.6–6.4 → 3.7Measured[owusu2012]Ferment the dough

What makes this one different

Fura is a cooked, pounded dumpling made from a spiced, soured millet dough. It is eaten mashed into fermented milk.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fura de nunuFura mashed into nunu, a locally fermented milk, with sugar to taste.

Safety

The dough is cooked, but fura is pounded and shaped by hand afterwards. In a Ghanaian thesis, untreated fura in polyethylene bags at ambient temperature held 8–9 log CFU/g of microbes and began to taste and feel unpleasant in the second week, which its abstract gives as a two-week shelf life. Its discussion says fura with such counts has a shelf life of only a few days. It reports total microbes, yeasts and moulds in storage, not pathogens. Coliforms in the steep water did not fall during a 12 h steep and dropped only in the sour dough (Amankona 2016).

Hazards the sources name: Coliform bacteria, about 5 log CFU/ml in the steep water; they stay or rise during the 12 h steep and fall to 1–2 log CFU during the dough fermentation.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Fura is a staple of the Hausa and Fulani. In Ghana it is made mainly in the northern regions and in Zongo communities, often by women as an income source.

  1. [owusu2012] Owusu-Kwarteng J., Akabanda F., Nielsen D.S., Tano-Debrah K., Glover R.L., Jespersen L. 2012, Identification of lactic acid bacteria isolated during traditional fura processing in Ghana, Food Microbiology 32(1):72–78, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2012.04.010 (abstract)paper
  2. [pedersen2012] Pedersen L.L., Owusu-Kwarteng J., Thorsen L., Jespersen L. 2012, Biodiversity and probiotic potential of yeasts isolated from Fura, a West African spontaneously fermented cereal, International Journal of Food Microbiology 159:144–151, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2012.08.016 (abstract)paper
  3. [owusu2013] Owusu-Kwarteng J. 2013, Molecular diversity and technological properties of predominant microorganisms associated with the processing of millet into fura, a fermented food in Ghana, PhD thesis, University of Ghanapaper
  4. [amankona2016] Amankona C. 2016, Development of starter culture for fermentation of millet into fura and preservation of fura by gamma radiation, MPhil thesis, University of Ghanapaper
  5. [jideani2001] Jideani V.A., Nkama I., Agbo E.B., Jideani I.A. 2001, Survey of fura production in some northern states of Nigeria, Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 56:23–36, doi:10.1023/A:1008116118051 (abstract)paper