John Myers
Cassava adds variety to your kitchen! South American potato, tapioca tuber, or yucca root – cassava has as many names as there are ways of preparing it. Since cassava belongs to the spurge family, consumption can be poisonous. Here’s how to prepare cassava and enjoy it without hesitation!
What is cassava?
Manioc grows mainly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and belongs to the spurge family. Cassava is one of the staple foods there and, like potatoes, is a regular part of the menu here. The root tuber contains twice as much starch as potatoes and also important ingredients such as vitamin C, iron, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus. Cassava has reddish-brown skin and a white tuber. You can imagine their taste being neutral to sweet.
Cassava and hydrocyanic acid
The cassava plant grows up to 5 m high. Only the underground tubers are edible, in some cultures the leaves are also eaten raw or fed to animals. Cassava is poisonous when eaten raw because the tuber contains hydrocyanic acid. However, heating destroys the hydrocyanic acid.
Hydrocyanic acid poisoning can cause damage to the musculoskeletal system or the optic nerve, and its toxic effect wears off after 6-8 hours in air or water.
Storage and transportation
You cannot store raw cassava for long, so you must prepare the tuber immediately after harvesting. For transport, cassava is usually frozen, ground into flour, or coated with wax. In the meantime, you can also find the cassava tuber in our supermarkets from time to time. Great, because fresh cassava fries from the oven are a specialty!
Prepare cassava
And this is how you prepare cassava correctly:
- First, peel and wash the root tuber
Note: It is better to wear kitchen gloves when doing this, as the milk that comes out is very sticky.
- Cut or grate cassava
- Boil, roast, or steam
- mash as required, fry in butter, or leave to dry and process into flour
Already knew?
When dried and ground, the root produces the so-called tapioca starch. You may know these from the little pearls in bubble tea.
You can fry manioc into delicious manioc fries, bake the flour into flatbread, make your sauces and soups creamier with the manioc porridge or fry the slices in butter – there are no limits to your imagination!
The great tropical tuber
Do you find it strange that one voluntarily consumes a basically highly poisonous plant? Is cassava worth the trouble?
If you look at the taste: no. Cassava has neither the sweetness of sweet potatoes nor the strong strength of classic potatoes. However, the tuber is also missing something else: gluten! For those who have to eat gluten-free, cassava or tapioca made from it is an excellent alternative.
The low taste is helpful for your recipes – you can prepare all spices with cassava without having to consider the taste. Cooking cassava in the oven and letting it roast slowly also preserves most of the vitamins and nutrients.
For better-eaters-know-it-alls:
Nobody knows anymore how cassava was discovered as a useful plant. The fact is: there is no such thing as uncultivated! The cassava plant is only available artificially, but anywhere in the world where it is tropical enough.
