For The Love Of Food: How To Make Tiger Nut (Ofio) Milk

For a very long time, I didn't know any other name for them than 'ofio'. The nice nuts we used to buy from mallams and abokis on our way back from school. They made me cough a lot, but I bought them still. Now, I know they are called Tiger nuts in English and I also know you can make some really nice and rich milk from them. I'll tell you how.

• Start by sorting out bad nuts from the good ones and then rinse them thoroughly with lots of clean water.

• Soak the very dry nuts in a generous quantity of cold, clean water for 2 days. Keep it in the fridge for the duration of the soaking so that the nuts do not ferment. If you are using fresh tigernuts, you need to soak only for a couple of hours

• Blend the nuts but ensire you don't add too much water - just enough to make the blender blades move so the milk doesn't get watered down. You will need a very good blender.

• At this time you can add other ingredients: coconut, sugar, ginger and other flavors of your choice and blend them together. However, it's advisable to keep your flavors as natural and minimal as possible, you don't want to mask the flavor of the nuts themselves.

• After blending, use a very fine sieve strainer to separate the milk from the chaff. Press well to make sure you squeeze out all the milk.

• Put the dry chaff back in the blender, add more water and blend again. Then strain again.

• Pour the extracted milk into bottles and store in the fridge for up to 3 days.

By the way, the reason Tiger nuts made me cough when I was young was because I used to try to swallow the chaff, which is hard. If like me, you would rather swallow the chaff than spit it out (what a waste, abi, and undignified. Lol), simply chew it with groundnut. It softens the chaff, don't ask me about the chemistry involved, but it works. Only thing is that you get a mixed flavor.

Update:

Some people wanted to know if tiger nuts have any nutitional or medicinal value, so I did some checking around and it turns out that it does have a lot of value. According to the tigernut website, they are rich in minerals and vitamins. They also help to prevent heart attacks and improve blood circulation. Check out 10 benefits of tigernuts that you should know. You have no reason not to indulge in the tigernut goodness!

A reader also suggested adding strawberries to the milk as a flavour. It sounds so exciting, doesn't it? I'm sure strawberry tigernut milk could almost pass for strawberry yoghurt. We really need to try it out!


Cover image via Allnigerianrecipes