Choice and storage
Yams will be obtainable within the markets year-round. Recent tubers, nonetheless, can be found in loads by August when their annual harvest season begins, marking the top of the wet season in Western Africa. A new yam pageant is well known with nice fervor as a logo of recent crops and the supply of recent meals in abundance throughout Nigeria and Ghana.
Within the supermarkets, typically one can come throughout, small reduce sections of yam wrapped in skinny plastic movies. Their inside meat is white to mild pink relying upon the cultivar sort with a wealthy, starchy taste.
Usually, complete tubers are saved after drying for a number of hours beneath the daylight, in well-ventilated yam barns (conventional storage system) the place they keep nicely for a number of months. Reduce sections, nonetheless, needs to be used early or saved within the fridge for quick use.
Preparation and serving strategies
Not like candy potatoes which will be eaten uncooked, yams ought to by no means be consumed raw since they carry naturally-occurring plant toxins together with dioscorine, diosgenin, and triterpenes. The tuber should be peeled and cooked with a view to take away these bitter proteins.
Dioscorea opposita or Japanese yam, nonetheless, will be eaten uncooked, in contrast to its African brethren. Right here, the entire root is briefly soaked within the vinegar-water answer to neutralize irritant oxalate crystals discovered of their pores and skin. The foundation is then reduce into small slices or grated to get gel-like milk so as to add to mouth-watering East-Asian recipes.
Listed here are some serving suggestions:
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| Pounded yam recipe, fufu. Picture: Saabir |
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The tuber can be utilized in a wide range of cuisines boiled, baked, fried, or typically roasted.
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The commonest cooking technique in Africa is “pounded yam.” Fufu (Foo-foo, Foufou) is a particular dish ready throughout the yam pageant. To make fufu; both pounded yam or its powder is added to boiling water to make a spherical cake-like dough (clump). A bite-sized piece of the fufu is then consumed with sauce, stew, or soup akin to ragi cake (finger-millet, Eleusine coracana, ragi-mudde) eaten in some elements of South India.
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Japanese yam or yamaimo is eaten uncooked in salads or grated to get gel-like milk, which is then added to noodles.
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It additionally used very similar to candy potatoes within the preparation of cake, casseroles, bread, and so on.
Medicinal makes use of
Yam tubers used numerous conventional medicines in China, Korea, and Japan. Its mucilaginous tuber milk comprises allantoin, a cell proliferation that hastens the therapeutic course of when utilized to ulcers, boils, and abscesses. Its decoction can also be used to stimulate urge for food and to alleviate bronchial irritation, cough, and so on. (Medical disclaimer).
Security profile
Yams of African species should be cooked earlier than safely eaten as a result of numerous pure poisonous substances akin to dioscorine could cause sickness if
consumed uncooked.(Medical disclaimer).
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Additional studying:
USDA – Nutrient Database for Commonplace Reference.