Abacha//ⓘ, also known as African salad, is a type of food originating with the Igbos in the south eastern part of Nigeria.[2][1][3] Abacha is a product of cassava tubers. When the processing of it is done from scratch, harvested cassava is obtained, peeled, washed, cooked and sliced into desired sizes or shapes. It is soaked in a bowl, bucket, etc., for a day. It could prepared instantly as abacha or sun-dried for future use.
shredded dried cassava first needs to be softened by soaking in boiled water and covered up for a few minutes.[2]
Optional supplementary ingredients, which are added with varying degrees of frequency and often represent regionally-derived variations, include, but are probably not limited to, ogiri; ugba/ukpaka; oporo (large dried shrimp/s); fried fish; dry fish; coloured peppers; seasoning cubes; ehuru/ehulu (commonly shortened to and called ehu. in normal speech); pepper (e.g., scotch-bonnet); onions; utazi; garden eggs (and/or the leaves); ukazi leaves; akidi-beans (marked variant); kpomo/kanda (cow-skin); ukwa (possibly unique to the Ikwerre); et-cetera. Palm oil, which in theory may either be red or a combination of red and bleached, is curdled using either kaun/potash, ngu (a more traditional version of contemporarily-conventional potash) or baking soda and the abacha slices are then mixed in the curdled oil.
The decision to add or not to add various condiments/additional ingredients is also partly dependent on whether it is intended to be consumed as a light, cold snack or more-or-less stand-alone (or at least in-between) meal. Abacha can serve both purposes.
Cassava is the main ingredient in abacha, and a single tuber contains about 80% carbohydrate.[4] There are 373 calories in one average serving of abacha.
