Northern Ghanaian most common dish TZ with vegetable soup

Zanlerigu Primary School

Ghanaian national food: TZ with vegetable soup
In Africa, especially Ghanaians consume varieties of food. One of the most cherished food consumed in the northern part of Ghana is “tuo zaafi” (TZ).

T.Z can be prepared using maize or millet. This millet is sub-divided into two: early millet called “nara” and guinea corn called “kemolega”.

After harvest this harvested millet is dried for 3-4 days and when well dried, you thrash or pound them and afterwards remove all the chaffs from the grains.

Also, the grains are ground using the grinding stone or grinding mill. This ground grains are called flour. This flour will be mixed with water. The water should stay for a day so that fermentation will take place. With your entire cooking utensils ready e.g. stirring rod, pot etc pour the fermented mixture inside the pot on fire and stir till it is uniformly mixed to form porridge. When this porridge is well boiled add flour and start stirring and adding the flour for 2-3 minutes and that makes what is called T.Z.

T.Z can be taken with a lot of soup depending on the kind of soup one prefers: groundnut paste and okro soup (vegetable soup) is what we intend eating with our T.Z.

With your groundnut paste, okro and other ingredients ready, you cut your okro into pieces set your fire and if the water starts boiling, pour your okro inside the pot.

If it starts to boil or boiling add salt bitter into it. In Ghana salt is very important in preparation of any meal, so you add salt and any other ingredients that are made available to you. You can even add meat if you have.

After all this you then serve your bowls and that makes a complete meal for consumption.

Bon appetit!

Our food project coordinator

Our chef

Cutting okro

Preparing T.Z.

T.Z. with vegetable soup is ready

Spend the next 10 minutes with us  to see the video and find out how our most common dish is made.

 

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TZ for dinner every day!

Tuo Zaafi (TZ) with okrosoup by Dagliga PS
Tuo Zaafi, also known as TZ is a very popular dish in northern Ghana. They eat it almost every day here. Many people are not used to eat anything else at all for dinner. TZ is also common in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger.

“Tuo” means stirring and “zaafi” means hot.  Tuo Zaafi is commonly made with maize flour or millet flour and it is soft in nature and a little sticky when felt between the hands.  It is normally eaten with any soup but most commonly with okrosoup. It has to be mentioned, that Ghanaians eat mostly with their hands, without using fork or knife.

Dagliga Primary School prepared TZ with okrosoup. It is now a harvest time, so they used fresh okro.

As all the food projects in Ghana (guided by Mondo’s volunteer Liina), Dagliga’s food project was filmed by a student. So he had a cooking lesson and a ICT lesson at the same time!

2 in 1: cooking and ICT lessons together.

TZ with okrosoup were prepared by professional cooking teacher and assisted by her students.

Professional cooking teacher and her students

Okrosoup

TZ with okrosoup

 Watch our educative film and find out how one of the most popular northern Ghana national dishes is made. Actually the whole process lasted for 3 hours, but the film is only 20 minute long!

 

After eating the staple food, TZ with okrosoup, we had Estonian sweet called halva (made from peanuts) for dessert. Ghanaians thought it was delicious but too sweet!

Estonian sweet called halva.

So, what do you have every day for dinner? Is it the same food every day or different ones?

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Common Ghanaian food for lunch – “kanzagma”

Gorug Primary School prepared national Ghanaian dish “kanzagma”. It is made from millet flour and beans leaves and steamed. “Kanzagma” is a light meal and commonly eaten for lunch.

We are ready for cooking!

For preparing “kanzagma” you need:

– millet flour;
– beans leaves;
– salt bitter
– sheaoil and pepper for taste;
– pot (and grass and net) for steaming;
– “blender” for smashing beans leaves;
– calabash for shaking.

All you need for preparing “kanzagma”

Ready “kanzagma” in calabash and one of the cooks.

Want to know how our national dish is prepared? Watch short video below and find out!

There was also a performance after cooking. Students and teachers clapped their hands, sang and danced three different dances wearing colourful costumes.

Teachers dancing Ghanaian national dance

After cooking and dancing – BON APPETIT!

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Ghanaian dish “nkanzagma” by Yakoti JHS

Yakoti Junior High School prepared Ghanaian national dish “nkanzagma”

Us!

Little helper from kindergarten!

“Nkanzagma” is a dish prepared mainly from millet flour and cooked by steaming. It is a delicious light meal for lunch.

Recipe

Ingredients

• ½ bowl of millet flour
• Pepper and salt to taste
• Cooking oil
• White beans leaves

Method

1. Wash and pound beans leaves
2. Add salt-bitter and water
3. Mix thoroughly and squeeze out beans leaves
4. Sprinkle the mixture on the flour and mix well
5. Put cooking pot on fire and spread with net or clean leaves/grasses
6. Put mixture in a calabash or shallow rubber and roll till smaller balls are formed
7. Spread them on the net or clean grasses and allow the steam to cook it
8. Serve with oil and pepper hot or cold.

Very important part of the procedure is shaking/rolling the mixture to form small balls.

Shaking the mixture in calabash

Here’s our video! Have a nice 7 minutes with us!

 

NAYEN SONG KA LA SIGI! (Nabt)

BON APPETIT! (English)

HEAD ISU! (Estonian)

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Damol-Tindongo School prepared “tubani” with beans leaves

What did you have for your school lunch yesterday? The students from Damol-Dindongo Primary School prepared their national dish “tubani” with beans leaves for their lunch.

Our cooking team

As every Mondo’s food project in Ghana is filmed and snapped by a student (ICT lesson also!), Moses took photos and made short videos of our food project.

Moses filming with the tablet

First of all, we made a plan.

A plan on how to prepare local food – GƆYA (tubani) by Damol-Tindongo Health Club

ACTION PLAN

Item code	Input description	Quantity	Freq.	Unit cost(GHC)	Total cost(GHC)
1	Millet	1 bowl	1	7.00	7.00
2	Salt	½ tea cup	1	0,20 p	0,20 p
3	Pepper	1 tea cup	1	0,50 p	0,50 p
4	Beans leaves	1 calabash	1	–	–
5	Sheabutter	Four balls	1	0,50 p	2.00
6	Salt bitter	½ tea cup	1	0,20 p	0,20 p
7	Water	3 cups	1	–	–
			Grand total:	8,40 GHC	9,90 GHC

PROCEDURE
First activity (ITEMS)

1. Millet
2. Beans leaves
3. Salt
4. Pepper
5. Sheabutter
6. Saltbitter

Second activity (STEPS)

1. Grind the millet into powder (flour);
2. Pound the beans leaves to took very soft;
3. Mix the flour with the pounded beans leaves;
4. Add water;
5. Add salt bitte;
6. Stir for a thorough mix;
7. Fist/mould the mixture into shapes;
8. Prepare a pot and pour small water in the bottom;
9. Place grass on the water in the bottom of the pot;
10. Put the shapes on the grass in the pot and close it;
11. Put the pot with the shapes on fire;
12. Allow it to boil for 30 minutes and your GƆYA (tubani) is ready for consumption.

And then we prepared the food. Watch the 13minute film and learn how to make tubani – our national dish that we eat almost every day for lunch!

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