Funkaso

Funkaso (also called pinkaso) is a savoury fried wheat dumpling from the Hausa-speaking parts of West Africa, most strongly associated with northern Nigeria and the wider Sahel region. The dough is made from fine wheat flour, yeast, finely chopped onion, scotch bonnet pepper and salt, rested until it is well risen and slightly airy, then deep-fried in small spoonfuls or piped through the fingers into hot oil so that each dumpling is irregularly shaped and crisp at the edges with a soft, springy centre.

Funkaso is a common street snack, sold from open-air fryers at motor parks, market squares and evening wedding venues, and is also a side dish at home meals, served alongside a bowl of soup or stew such as miyan kuka, miyan taushe or a pepper-soup. The name comes from the Hausa word fun (to throw) and the porous, almost spongy texture comes from the same yeast-leavening that is used for puff-puff and for the fried buns of the Sahel. Outside West Africa, the same dumpling is encountered in the diaspora as Ghanaian bofrot or in Nigerian-Caribbean communities as a kind of savoury puff-puff cousin.