Many of our Nigerian dishes such as akara and dodo are tagged as a no-no when it comes to eating healthy it contains high levels of fat that can clog our arteries and lead to heart diseases and strokes. *sigh*

But fear not all yeah akara lovers, Nosak Famili to the rescue! What differentiates akara waffles from the normal akara balls? Well, because the beans puree won’t be immersed in a ‘pool’ of vegetable oil. So, let’s get working.

Enjoy!

 Ingredients

• 1 cup of peeled beans
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon of crayfish
• 2 tablespoons of Famili Pure Vegetable Oil
• 1 Chopped Onions
• 1 Chopped Tatashe – red bell pepper
• Fried Pepper sauce for serving – optional

Method

1. Blend the beans to a smooth puree. You can decide to add the onions and tatashe to the beans before blending.
2. The traditional recipe for Akara calls for stirring the bean batter to let it breathe, but thank God for modernization, hand mixer to the rescue.
3. Let the engine run at 1 for about 5 minutes, till you see air pockets in the batter.
4. Stir in the crayfish and season with salt
5. Heat up the waffle maker. Spray on oil, or you can dip a kitchen paper towel in oil and rub every usable surface.
6. Pour beans puree into the waffle maker.
7. Closing the waffle maker loosely will help the akara cook a little without sticking to the top.
8. Once it is half cooked, shut the lid tightly to allow the top to cook.

***A few warning points, you may likely get bits of the top sticking, but leave the device to keep running. As it gets hotter, the bits that have stuck become harder and comes off the waffle maker cleanly.