We should always be conscious of what we give our babies to eat. Once a baby is 6 months old, he/she can be introduced to home made meals. One simple food you can first introduce to your little one is Pap....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
It’s better you prepare it yourself at home so you can be sure of what you’re giving your child.
EIGHT STEPS TO MAKING BABY’S PAP/AKAMU
What you will need:
– 1 cup dry yellow or white corn
– 2 cups guinea corn
– 2 cups millet
– Ginger
– Water (you need plenty of water)
– Large chiffon cloth
– Thick cotton bag (normally salt bags washed thoroughly with no trace of salt)
– Big bowl
METHOD OF PREPARATION
Step 1: Wash the corn, guinea corn and millet separately to remove the bad grains, sand, stones and chaff. Pour all into a bowl and add enough water to cover it. Leave it for 2-3 days ensuring you rinse and change the water everyday.
Step 2: Blend the grains together with any of your flavourings and sufficient water in a blender if you have a powerful one, otherwise you go to the commercial grinding mills to do so, as it needs to be blended into a paste. If you don’t have a powerful blender, you may need to repeat the grinding process once more after taking step 5 below.
Step 3: Tie the large cheese cloth tightly round your big bowl making sure the bowl can still balance on a flat surface to enable you start the main task. Scoop small amounts of the blended mixture into the cheese cloth.
Step 4: Using your hands and little amount of water, start sieving to get the corn paste pass through the cheesecloth into the bowl. Keep sieving until the leftover is completely a dry chaff.
Step 5: If you used a blender that didn’t blend the mixture very smoothly, the chaff may not be dry at this time and will contain some more paste. Put it back in the blender, add a little water to blend more and then continue with step 3.
Step 6: Once you’ve finished sieving all the mixture, gently untie the cheese cloth from the bowl. Cover and leave the bowl for about 3 hours to allow the mixture settle. After that, you will see that the water above is completely clear and ready to be gently drained and you have your Pap at the bottom.
Step 7: After draining off the water, stir the pap well and pour it into the clean cotton bag. Squeeze it tightly to remove excess water and using a rope or the end of the bag, tie it up in a way that it can squeeze more water out. Place the pap bag on a flat elevated surface or your sink (anywhere that water can drain away from it) and place a heavy object on it to help it drain of the water completely. Leave overnight if need be.
Step 8: Once the water is drained, untie your bag and you have your pap. It is best to cut into small quantities that can be served at a go, tie in transparent small bags and then preserve in the freezer.
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