Asanka

A ridged earthenware bowl: pepper sauce and fufu accompaniments ground the Ghanaian way.

Also called asanka bowl, earthenware grinding bowl · From Ghana and the West African coast

A ridged asanka with a wooden masher, crushed tomato, and Scotch bonnet peppers.

The journey

An asanka is a shallow clay bowl with inner ridges, used with a wooden masher. Ghanaian and neighboring West African kitchens still grind tomato, chile, and onion in it so a sauce holds seeds and oil instead of becoming a blender puree.

A molcajete is a volcanic cousin. The asanka is wider and meant for a wet mash that goes straight to the table.

A map of the Atlantic world — the West African bowl that still mashes pepper sauce. — Rigobert Bonne, map of the Antilles (1780) · Public domain. Source

In the kitchen

Add salt and chile first. Work in circles against the ridges. Stop while the sauce still has body.

The West African volume's pepper sauces assume this bowl. A mortar can stand in for a small batch.

Used in these ComidaTime kitchens

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