Tiger Nut-Barley Kunnu: A Nigerian Drink from The Groundnut Cookbook

Pouring through the marvellous Groundnut Cookbook, I found a scratch to my long-time Horchata itch.   Here they’d offered a Nigerian recipe for a Tiger Nut Milk called Kunnu which is similarly delicious, filling and refreshing..

First step, you take your Tiger Nuts, in my case very tasty ones that were a sample from The Tiger Nut Company, a company deeply concerned with the quality of its product and with health and sustainability; they are currently working through a Spanish distributor which is applying for Fair Trade status for its farms in the Sahel (not sure which countries), and now selling Spanish grown tubers as well.

Soak the tiger nuts in water overnight:

They won’t totally soften, but when you blend them in a blender, you get a thick fragrant nutty “milk” out of which you can strain the pulp.

Instead of rice, I used barley, which I cooked in lots of water, then blended and also strained.

Kunnu from The Groundnut Cookbook

“Kunnu is particularly popular in northern Nigeria, It’s a kind of “milk” made from grains, cereals or nuts, which are soaked and then blended in water along with other seasonings…”

200 grams tiger nuts– washed, soaked for 6+ hours, drained, then blended with 400ml, then 400ml more, fresh water

Sieve the liquid through a fine strainer, getting as much “milk” as you can (hopefully around 500ml).

Blend 400grams cooked rice with 1200ml fresh water, added incrementally. Pulse until totally smooth, probably yielding about a litre.

Crush 20 cardamom pods and a teaspoon salt in a mortar and pestle, add to the liquids, and refrigerate.

I love this drink so much.  It’s so sweet with no sugar, a miracle of nutrition, and a great vegan milk.  (I did hold some back, and fermented it with milk kefir grains, but didn’t like the taste so much, but you might). Kunnu — who knew? It’s nice to imagine something from Northern Nigeria here in the cold driving rain of mid-Wales.

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And a postscript: just because I can’t stand throwing anything away, and with the leftover tiger nut and barley pulps wanting to be useful, I recalled the recipe for Gruel Bread in the Tassajara Bread Book — a very solid mixture of cooked grains and whole wheat flour, a little salt and a lot of oil.  I did add a bit of sourdough starter, and some of the Tiger Nut flour (very sweet, fragrant, paleo) that the company had sent.

and I made a nice bread which became nice toast with a nice egg.

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