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Cereals and bread from Sudan

Kisraكسرة

Whole sorghum flour is mixed with water into a thick paste and left 12 to 24 hours until lactic bacteria make it very sour. Just before baking the paste is thinned to a slurry and spread thin on a hot oiled pan.

Fully documentedCereals and bread12 h – 24 h

Recipe

Kisra, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Mohamed Elfatih Hamadien, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceProportions from the FAO flow diagram (60 parts flour to 40 parts water, w/v). Households use no fixed batch size.
Whole sorghum flour60 parts (w/v)Cultivars with a white, chalky pericarp and no subcoat give the best kisra[fao1999]
Water40 parts (w/v)Flour to water 60:40 (w/v) for the thick paste; more water is added just before baking[fao1999]
Optional old batterIn a lab study, three fermentations in a row were each started with batter from the one before[mohammed1991]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 h – 24 h

Start
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What changes: Sorghum grain is milled into whole flour

Step 1 of 5
Mill the sorghum
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Pediococcus pentosaceus
Lactobacilli

Output: whole sorghum flour.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

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

Whole sorghum flour is mixed with water into a thick paste and left 12 to 24 hours until lactic bacteria make it very sour. Just before baking the paste is thinned to a slurry and spread thin on a hot oiled pan. Made in 5 steps over 12 h – 24 h. The longest step, ferment the paste, takes 12–24 h (Haard N.F 1999) and runs at 30 °C (Mohammed S.I 1991). Pediococcus pentosaceus (dominant at 24 h and in back-slopped batter), Lactobacillus brevis, L. confusus and Yeasts Candida intermedia and Debaryomyces hansenii do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12–24 hReported[fao1999][mohammed1991]Ferment the paste
Temperature30 °CReported[mohammed1991]Ferment the paste
AciditypH 6 → 3.95Measured[mohammed1991]Ferment the paste

What makes this one different

Kisra keeps the sorghum batter thick while it sours and thins it only just before baking it as a flatbread. Aceda and nasha are other Sudanese sour sorghum foods, cooked as a stiff porridge and a thin porridge.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Back-slopped kisraIn a lab study, with batter from the previous fermentation, bacteria level off at about 9 h instead of 18 h, and Pediococcus pentosaceus dominates; lactic acid reached 0.90 % and pH 3.86 by 9 h (Mohammed 1991 thesis).

Safety

Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae were among the bacteria isolated from sorghum batter during a 24 h lab fermentation at 30 °C. In that time the batter pH fell from 5.95 to 3.95 and Pediococcus pentosaceus became the dominant organism.

Hazards the sources name: Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae, found during the batter fermentation.

History and sources

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

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [fao1999] Haard N.F., Odunfa S.A., Lee C.-H., Quintero-Ramírez R., Lorence-Quiñones A., Wacher-Radarte C. 1999, Fermented cereals. A global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 138, ch. 2 (citing Ejeta 1982 and El-Tinay et al. 1979)gov
  2. [mohammed1991] Mohammed S.I., Steenson L.R., Kirleis A.W. 1991, Isolation and characterization of microorganisms associated with the traditional sorghum fermentation for production of Sudanese kisra, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 57(9):2529–2533, doi:10.1128/aem.57.9.2529-2533.1991paper
  3. [mohammed-thesis] Mohammed S.I. 1991, Isolation and characterization of microorganisms associated with the traditional sorghum fermentation and development of starter culture for production of Sudanese kisra, Ph.D. dissertation, Purdue University (abstract)paper