Ogi

Instructions

1. Pick over 80 g of dry white maize, discarding stones and broken husks, and rinse in two changes of cold water. Put it in a bowl or jar, cover with 750 ml of water so the grains sit well below the surface, and leave uncovered-but-screened at warm room temperature for 3 days. The water will cloud, bubble faintly and smell sharply sour, that souring is the ferment and is what makes it ogi rather than plain cornmeal.
2. Drain the maize, rinse it once briefly, and tip it into a blender with 300 ml of water. Blend on high for 2-3 minutes, in bursts, until the mixture is a smooth milky slurry with no gritty kernel pieces left between your fingers.
3. Line a sieve with muslin or a clean cloth set over a deep bowl and pour the slurry through. Gather the cloth and squeeze and twist firmly until only dry-feeling bran and hull are left in it; scrape the underside of the cloth. Discard the chaff, the milky white liquid in the bowl is the ogi.