Uphuthu (Crumbly Maize Porridge)

Variations

• Pap in its swallow form: the same meal cooked with plenty of water and stirred sets into one mass that you tear off by hand and dip in stew. It sits where fufu sits — "It is food you dip in soup and swallow rather than chew". Korean Wikipedia's article on uphuthu says it is made with less water than the swallow form of pap, which gives it its dry, separate texture. The amount of water is the only thing between the two.
• With soured milk: cooled uphuthu is also eaten with sour fermented milk (amasi) poured over it, a cold acidity in place of a hot stew.
• How far it is from polenta: the same maize porridge. "One part meal to five of water is the reference for soft polenta." This recipe uses 420g of meal to 500ml of water — a little over one part water to one of meal.
• West Africa's granular staples: dambou cracks a grain and steams it, attiéké presses fermented cassava and steams it. Both reach separate grains through a steamer. Uphuthu gets there in one pot.

Tips

• Too little water is the whole dish. Dambou gives the reason a steamer is needed: "Boil the same grits and the starch leaving each surface has somewhere to go, and everything sticks together". Attiéké, likewise, is "steamed rather than boiled, which is the only reason it arrives as separate granules." Uphuthu does cook in a pot of water, but once the meal has drunk that water there is none left for the escaping starch to go into, which is why it does not set into one mass even though it is boiled.
• Unlike polenta, tip it in all at once and do not stir. Polenta's rule is "Rain it in thin, whisking throughout." and the reason is lumps — "once the meal clumps, the outside cooks and the inside stays dry powder." Polenta has to become one smooth porridge, so a lump is a failure. Uphuthu never has the water to become smooth. So the order is reversed: cover first, so the steam wets the whole heap, and break it up after. The broken pieces are the finished crumbs.
• Keep the lid on for the first five minutes. The water is only under the heap; what wets the top is the steam rising through it (steaming). Lift the lid and the top stays dry meal.
• Break it, never press it. Dambou says the same: "Finished grains stick when they are compressed." Lift and scatter with the tines of a fork.
• Do not shorten the time. Polenta explains its forty minutes: "That is how long the corn starch takes to gelatinise fully; short of it, the texture is sandy." Every crumb of uphuthu has to cook through too. With so little water the heat stays at its lowest, and the fork every five minutes keeps the base from catching (heat control).
• Salt goes in the water. Once the meal has taken up all the water, salt scattered later only sits on the outside of the crumbs (salt and seasoning).