Pounded yam flour substitutes

The original dish rather than a substitute: true African white yam, peeled, boiled until soft and pounded in a mortar or blitzed in a food processor.

Best for

pounded yam, serving with egusi, efo riro, ogbono or vegetable soup

Honestly better than the flour, which is why the flour exists as a shortcut rather than an improvement. Fresh pounded yam is sweeter, more elastic and slightly translucent, and it holds a torn piece without crumbling. The cost is time and effort: peel, boil for twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, then pound hot with a splash of the cooking water. A food processor works if you pulse in short bursts and stop before it turns to glue.

Milled dried cassava, sold either plain or as fermented fufu flour or lafun.

Best for

swallows, serving with any Nigerian or Ghanaian soup, gluten-free swallows

Very close on colour, which matters more than people expect, since a pounded yam swallow is meant to be white. The texture is softer and less springy, so it sits on the plate as a rounder, slacker ball. Fermented fufu flour brings a clear sour tang that plain cassava flour does not; if you want a neutral swallow, buy plain. Add the flour slightly more slowly, because cassava thickens faster than yam.

Coarse durum wheat semolina, used across Nigeria as the swallow known as semo.

Best for

quick swallows, cooking with supermarket ingredients, serving with stews and soups

The most available option in a Western supermarket and the most obviously different. Semo is pale yellow rather than white, noticeably grainy on the tongue and tastes of wheat, whereas pounded yam is deliberately neutral so the soup does the talking. It functions well and it is a real dish, so treat it as a good weeknight answer and a poor impersonation. It contains gluten, unlike the yam and cassava flours.

Dried potato flakes whisked into boiling water, the closest supermarket match on appearance.

Best for

emergency swallows, single portions, getting the right colour and smoothness quickly

This is the least-bad supermarket answer and it is better than it sounds. The result is white, completely smooth and stiff enough to shape into a ball, which no other pantry option manages. What it does not have is stretch, so it breaks rather than tearing, and it tastes of potato. Buy the plainest flakes on the shelf, since most add milk solids, butter flavour and salt, all of which fight a Nigerian stew.

Dried, darker-processed yam flour used to make amala, from the same plant as poundo yam.

Best for

amala, serving with ewedu, gbegiri and stew

Same raw ingredient, entirely different result on the plate. Elubo makes amala: dark brown to near black, softer, stickier and distinctly earthy with a faint smoky bitterness. It is an excellent swallow, and it is a swap in the sense that it fills the same role in the meal, not in the sense that anyone would confuse the two. If the person eating asked for pounded yam, tell them it is amala.

Dried unripe plantain milled to a flour, sold in African grocers and health-food shops.

Best for

swallows, gluten-free cooking, serving with rich soups

Makes a light brown swallow with a soft, pleasant stretch and a mild fruity sweetness. It works well and it is a common Nigerian variant in its own right. The trade-off is that pounded yam's whole appeal is neutrality, and plantain flour has an opinion: with a delicate soup you will taste the plantain, and with a bold egusi or ogbono you will not notice at all.