Miyan kuka

What makes it miyan kuka

• Dried baobab leaves, powdered, whisked in near the end.
• Daddawa, and a stock of meat or dried fish.
• Eaten with tuwo, not rice.

Where it comes from

Baobab trees stand across the northern savannah, and their young leaves are dried and pounded to a green powder that keeps through the dry season. Whisked into a stock of meat or dried fish, onion and daddawa — fermented locust beans — it makes a soup that thickens as it cooks.

It's the Hausa home soup, eaten with tuwo shinkafa, soft rice pounded and shaped into mounds, or tuwo masara, of maize.

How it varies

With tuwo shinkafa

Soft rice, pounded and moulded — the classic partner.

With dried fish

Smoked or dried fish in place of meat.