Cooking With the Mamas: Nyanpul

The first time we tried nyanpul was on the street straight from a bowl atop a guy's head. We thought he had sold us magical coconut bits. It was unbelievably delicious. We reported back to Mama Youyou who thought we were ridiculous because it's so easy to make. Here's the recipe that can be filed under, Why haven't we been making this our whole lives?

Congolese Nyanpul
Ingredients:
1 small coconut
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk

(That's it. Really!)

1: Grate a fresh coconut. This process can serve as amazing entertainment for the baby plopped on the counter beside you.

1 fresh coconut, grated

Baby entertainment

2: Add sugar. Add milk. Stir a bit to dissolve the sugar.

All the ingredients in one little bowl.

Also good toddler entertainment

3: Cook on the stove top. Let it come to a boil and continue to stir and stir and stir.

Two stirrers are better than one

4: Cook and stir the mixture until it's good and dried out. It can take a bit of time to achieve maximum nyanpul crunchiness.

And voilà, finished nyanpul.

I dream of sprinkling a bit of nyanpul on ice cream or on top of a cake. But if you want to be traditionally Congolese, just eat it by the handful. That's very culturally acceptable, thank goodness.

all photos by Sarah