Taro (cocoyam)
Also called: Colocasia esculenta, dasheen, eddo, coco, colocase
Taro is a tuber with brown, hairy skin and white or faintly purple flesh depending on the variety. Cooked, it turns smooth and slightly sticky, with a mild, nutty taste. In Cameroon it is kept distinct from macabo, another tuber in the same family but a different species (Xanthosoma). English speakers often call both of them cocoyam, which causes confusion.
In the North-West, taro is the base of achu: it is boiled, then pounded for a long time into a smooth, elastic paste served with yellow soup. Lumo has one recipe that uses it, achu with yellow soup. Taro can also simply be boiled and eaten with a sauce. Choose tubers that are firm and heavy, with no soft spots or mould. Raw taro irritates the skin and mouth, so peel it wearing gloves or with oiled hands, and never eat it raw or undercooked. Keep it somewhere cool, dry and airy rather than in the fridge, and use it within one to two weeks.
Abroad, taro is sold in African, Asian and Caribbean grocery shops, sometimes labelled dasheen or eddo, and sometimes frozen and already peeled. For achu there is no good substitute: macabo and potatoes do not pound into the same paste.
Recipes with this ingredient
- Achu & Yellow Soup Nord-Ouest · 2 hr 10 min
A North-West signature: smoothly pounded taro served with the famous yellow soup, an emulsion of red palm oil and limestone (kanwa) loaded with spices and assorted meat.