Ingredients
The grain
- 150 gsorghum meal
- finely ground
- or maize meal
- or a mixture of both
The liquid
- 1.2 litreswater
- a pinch of salt
To serve
- sugar, to taste
- milk, to pour
- or sour milk, madila
- a knob of butter, optional
Sometimes soured
- leave the mixed meal and water
- covered, overnight
- or add 2 tablespoons
- of a previous soured batch
Directions
- Use finely ground sorghum or maize meal. Do not use cornflour or cornstarch. Mix the meal with cold water to a smooth slurry.
- Cover it and leave it at room temperature. Leave it overnight, or up to two days. Stir that back in. It should not smell putrid or of ammonia. Discard anything that smells or looks wrong. Do not taste to check. Use clean bowls and utensils.
- Keep it covered at room temperature. Very warm conditions favour the wrong organisms. Mix the meal into cold water first. Never add meal to hot water.
- Whisk the meal into a portion of cold water. Whisk until completely smooth. It should be like thin cream. Pour the cold slurry into the boiling water. Pour it in a steady stream.
- Whisk constantly as you pour. That prevents lumps entirely. Simmer it for about twenty minutes. Stir it regularly throughout. Use a heavy pan, which catches less. It should be smooth and slightly thickened. Keep hot water beside the pan. Add a pinch of salt. Serve it hot in bowls.
- Add sugar to taste at the table. Pour milk over the top. Add a knob of butter if you like. It is thick, tangy and slightly sharp.
- Use fresh milk with a soured porridge if you prefer. It keeps three days refrigerated. Stir it constantly as it reheats. The texture is unaffected, since it is already smooth.
Technique
- Mix the meal into cold water first, then pour that slurry into boiling water while whisking. Meal added to hot water forms instant lumps that never break down — the single commonest failure with any grain porridge.
- Stir regularly and scrape the base. Porridge catches easily and a caught pan tastes burnt throughout with no way to rescue it. Use a heavy pan.
- Make it thinner than seems right. Motogo is a soft loose porridge and it thickens considerably as it cools, so keep hot water beside the pan.
- Give sorghum the full twenty minutes. Undercooked sorghum tastes chalky.
- The pinch of salt is not a mistake. It makes both the grain and the sweetness taste more, and leaving it out gives a flat bowl.
- Souring overnight is optional but common — soured sorghum porridge is called ting. Fermentation improves the nutritional availability of the grain, makes it more digestible and preserves the mixture, which is why the technique persists.
- Judge a ferment by smell: sour and clean like yoghurt is right, putrid or ammoniac is not, and fuzzy black, green or pink growth means discard it. A thin white film is usually harmless yeast. Do not taste to check whether something has gone wrong.
- A few spoonfuls from a previous soured batch makes the ferment faster and far more predictable. That backslop is standard practice.
- Use finely ground sorghum or maize meal, not cornflour or cornstarch, which is a pure thickening starch giving a gluey tasteless result.
- Soured porridge with soured milk is doubly tangy and genuinely made, though some find it too much. Fresh milk over a soured porridge is the middle course.
- Motogo is the soft sweet breakfast porridge; bogobe is the stiffer version eaten with a savoury relish. Both come from the same meal and the difference is consistency and how they are served.
- Sorghum was domesticated in Africa and tolerates drought and poor soil, which matters enormously in a country that is largely Kalahari. Maize has displaced it in many places because it yields more and tastes milder, but sorghum is the older grain here.
Substitutions
- Maize meal replaces sorghum and gives a milder, sweeter porridge.
- A mixture of sorghum and maize is common and balances the two.
- Plain yoghurt thinned with milk, buttermilk or soured cream replaces madila.
- Honey replaces sugar.
- Millet meal makes the same porridge with a different flavour.
- A spoonful of previous soured slurry, or plain yoghurt, starts the ferment predictably.
Variations
- Ting is the soured sorghum version and is widely made.
- Bogobe is the stiffer porridge eaten with meat and vegetables.
- Motoho in Lesotho is the closest neighbour version, usually soured.
- Mabele and putu pap in South Africa are the same family.
- Igikoma in Burundi and garoobey in Djibouti do the same job further north.
- A version enriched with butter and served to new mothers is made in several communities.
Frequently asked questions
What is Motogo?
Motogo is a breakfast from Botswana: loose soft sorghum or maize porridge served with sugar and milk.
How long does Motogo take to make?
Motogo takes 5 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4. It is rated easy to make.
What can I substitute in Motogo?
Yes, within limits. Maize meal replaces sorghum and gives a milder, sweeter porridge. A mixture of sorghum and maize is common and balances the two. Plain yoghurt thinned with milk, buttermilk or soured cream replaces madila. Honey replaces sugar. Millet meal makes the same porridge with a different flavour. A spoonful of previous soured slurry, or plain yoghurt, starts the ferment predictably.
What is the most important thing to get right in Motogo?
Use finely ground sorghum or maize meal. Do not use cornflour or cornstarch. Mix the meal with cold water to a smooth slurry.
