Nutty, sweet Nigerian delicacy: Dankwa – a perfect blend of maize, groundnuts, spices

Maize-peanut balls (also known as dakua, dzowe or donkwa) is a street snack made from roasted, dried and milled maize and groundnuts.

 

Dankwa, (maize-peanut balls) is a Nigerian (Hausa) delicacy as well as a cereal and groundnut based snack.

 

It is mainly eaten in the northern parts of Nigeria and basically prepared from mixtures of cereals, groundnut, ground pepper, ginger, sugar and salt.

 

The ingredients are thoroughly mixed, pounded and moulded into balls that can be eaten without further processing.

 

It is interesting to note that dankuwa can also be produced from cereals like maize, millet and sorghum), tiger nuts and groundnuts.

 

In the traditional method of dankua processing, the grains are usually cleaned, toasted and ground together to give a paste.

Recipe for 5 servings

• 1 derica cup maize or any other grain

• 1 derica cup roasted groundnuts

• 1 cup sugar to taste

• 1 teaspoon salt to taste

• 2 tablespoons ground ginger [optional]

• 1 cup of water for little addition and moulding

 

Method

• Prepare the maize grains and groundnuts by cleaning them manually.

• Wash the maize thoroughly with clean tap water and soak in some water for hours.

• Go ahead and oven dry for sixty minutes or till dry.

• Meanwhile, dehusk, decoat or peel both the groundnut seeds.

• Mill both separately using a local mill, Buchi mixer or blender.

• Go ahead and sieve the maize flour and groundnut paste separately before mixing them together.

• Add some table sugar and powdered red pepper as you mix thoroughly.

• If you can, blend them together again and then mould into small sizeable balls.

• Serve warm as homemade healthy snacks