Sweet potatoes are one of the common food security crops around. It is grown across most of the country, making it the third most grown crop, after bananas and cassava. In recent months, however, prices have drastically dropped due to a bumper harvest.
On some farms, a 100kg sack goes for as low as sh30,000, for example. Adding value to this product is the best way at earning more from it. If processed into flour, the same sack can fetch a farmer as much as sh150,000.
This can be done by farmers who are mid -level value chain investors. Potatoes can be processed into chips, flour that is used as a confectionery, for example baking daddies, mandanzi, bagiya, etc. The common orange sweet potatoes are better suited for value addition.
What you need for mandazi
- You need flour
- Baking powder
- Eggs
- Frying pan
- Cooking oil
Mix one packet of wheat flour (2kg), 1kg of sweet potato flour (two cups), one packet of baking flour, quarter a kilogramme of sugar, quarter of a tea spoonful of salt, two table spoonful of blue band, grated peeling from one lemon fruit and one egg into a clean container.
Mix the above ingredient thoroughly well, until you obtain an evenly balanced paste. Add two cups of water to the paste bit by bit and keep mixing, until all the ingredients are fully dissolved into one uniform paste. Sometimes you can substitute one cup of water with milk if you like, but this is optional.
Leave the paste to rest up to 20-30 minutes for better results. After, put the paste on a clean surface and cut it into uniform shapes and sizes for the type of mandazi you desire to have. Put the cut out mandazi into a heated pan with boiling cooking oil and keep turning them, until the colour turns brown. Remove and drain the oil out before packaging.
Making potato juice
- You need fresh potatoes
- Water
- Pasturiser/saucepan
Boil and mash sweet potato into two litres of water and filter using a muslin cloth to produce a clear juice. After add other juices, such as lemon and pineapple to the juice to improve on the taste.
Add sugar to the remaining water (four litres) and boil the solution in an aluminium pan, until syrup is formed. After, add the hot syrup into the juice mixture of sweet potato, lemon and pineapple fruit juice and heat the new combined mixture to near boiling point (80°C-90°C) in a stainless steel pan.
Then remove and leave it to cool. Sterilise the containers and after, pack the juice into containers, when it is cool enough. Continue to cool the juice in its containers, until it reaches room temperature.
The juice is ready to drink and can be diluted with water.
