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Soy and legumes from Benin

Sonru (Beninese néré condiment with yanyanku)sonru

Sonru is a soft, strong-smelling African locust bean (néré) condiment from Benin. The seeds are boiled about 12 hours, dehulled, boiled again briefly with a little yanyanku, a fermented roselle-seed starter, and left about two days wrapped up to ferment. Bacillus does the work, and the long fermentation makes the cotyledons very soft.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes37 h – 2.6 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional sonru has no fixed amounts; the 1 ‰ yanyanku dose is the optimum found in a response-surface study.
African locust bean seedsWashed and sorted[Zannou2018]
Yanyanku1 ‰ of the cotyledons in an optimised processAdded towards the end of the second cooking[Agbobatinkpo2019jfst][Zannou2018]
Fine sand or ashAdded during dehulling to make it easier[Zannou2018]
Starteryanyanku, a roselle-seed ferment that raises the initial Bacillus count

Total time across the recorded steps: 37 h – 2.6 days

Start
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What changes: Locust bean seeds boil about twelve hours until the coats soften

Step 1 of 4
First long cooking
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Bacillus

Output: cooked seeds, cooled and washed.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
seed coats soften; bitterness is lost
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

boiling kills most microbes

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Sonru is a soft, strong-smelling African locust bean (néré) condiment from Benin. The seeds are boiled about 12 hours, dehulled, boiled again briefly with a little yanyanku, a fermented roselle-seed starter, and left about two days wrapped up to ferment. Bacillus does the work, and the long fermentation makes the cotyledons very soft. Made in 4 steps over 37 h – 2.6 days. The longest step, ferment wrapped in trays, takes 24 h – 2 days (Azokpota P 2006) and runs at 30–47.5 °C (Agbobatinkpo B.P 2019). Bacillus spp. does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 2 daysReported[Azokpota2006][Agbobatinkpo2019jfst]Ferment wrapped in trays
Temperature30–47.5 °CMeasured[Agbobatinkpo2019jfst]Ferment wrapped in trays
AciditypH 7.4Measured[Agbobatinkpo2019jfst]Ferment wrapped in trays

What makes this one different

Sonru ferments 48 h with yanyanku, where afitin ferments 24 h with no additive; iru uses a different roselle-and-pepper starter, iku-iru [Azokpota2006].

Related ferments

Variants

  • Yanyanku (the starter)Roselle seeds cooked 1 h in shea-wood ash filtrate (500 g ash per L of water), fermented in covered baskets at 26–28 °C, then pounded and sun-dried; 36 h of fermentation was enough [Agbobatinkpo2019asa]. A review describes it instead as roselle seed soaked 7 days in ash solution, dried and ground [Zannou2018].

Safety

Staphylococci reach about 10^6 cfu/g in the first day of fermentation before falling, and yanyanku raises their count slightly [Azokpota2006].

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus spp. (about 10^6 cfu/g at 12–18 h, falling to about 5 × 10^4 cfu/g at 48 h).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Sonru is one of three locust-bean condiments of Benin, with afitin and iru [Azokpota2006]. Across West Africa these condiments are made mainly by women, for the household and for sale [Zannou2018].

  1. [Azokpota2006] Azokpota P., Hounhouigan D.J., Nago M.C. 2006, Microbiological and chemical changes during the fermentation of African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) to produce afitin, iru and sonru, three traditional condiments produced in Benin, Int. J. Food Microbiol. 107:304–309, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2005.10.026 (abstract)paper
  2. [Agbobatinkpo2019jfst] Agbobatinkpo B.P., Tossou G.M., Adinsi L., Akissoe H.N., Hounhouigan D.J. 2019, Optimal fermentation parameters for processing high quality African locust bean condiments, J. Food Sci. Technol. 56:4648–4657, doi:10.1007/s13197-019-03916-1paper
  3. [Zannou2018] Zannou O., Chabi I.B., Koca I. 2018, Some traditional fermented food from African locust beans (Parkia biglobosa): production and volatile compounds, GSJ 6(9) (review)paper
  4. [Agbobatinkpo2019asa] Agbobatinkpo P.B., Azokpota P., Hounhouigan J.D. 2019, Dynamique de la fermentation des graines de bissap pour la production du yanyanku et du ikpiru, deux ferments traditionnels produits au Bénin, Annales des Sciences Agronomiques 23(2):171–182paper