• After extracting beans from your dried bean stalks, gather and transfer them to a clear, safe place to burn them without the firespreading dangerously.
  
• Light them with your match stick or source of fire and burn them all to ashes.
• Allow the ash from the burnt up bean stalks to cool, ensuring that water does not get in contact with the ash. The ash must completely cool and dry.
• Next, gather the ash and keep it in a suitable container for use whenever needed. If you burned a large pile of the bean stalks, your ash can last a long time.
  

Making Munyu or Musherekha

• Find a suitable rust-free perforated metal or plastic can. (I improvised mine by using a used 500gram fat can as shown. I then made little holes at the bottom of the can like I have done with a nail.

  For this plastic container, I used a hot nail to make it easier to form small neat holes.

  Wash and dry it.
  
• Add the ash to about ¾ of the container full. Don’t add it loosely, press as you add to ensure the ash is compact.

  Place it on a suitable wide ball and plate where water can collect at the bottom as it percolates through the ash.
• Pour clean cold water over the ash in the can slowly. Ensure it doesn’t overflow.

  Because the ash is still dry, as water reduces as it soaks up the ash, keep pouring more water over the ash until it begins to collect at the bottom of the can on the plate. You can then stop pouring.

  Once it has gone through the ash and collected on the plate or bowl, transfer your can with the ash on a separate clean plate.

  This first time, the water at the bottom will usually pass through the holes at the bottom of the ash with some ash. It has also not yet had time to percolate through the ash well. Dont use this water you collected just yet. Pour it back over the ash in the can so it can percolate again. Rinse the plate and transfer the can with the wet ash and water back on the plate.

  You want the water at the bottom of the can as clear as possible. (It may still have traces of ash but it's generally clear, which should be the case this second time.) The wet ash is now held together with the water. The ash doesn't go through the holes this second, and subsequent times when using this particular ash in the can.

  This is why when you start with ash for the first time, you have to let the water go through the ash twice.
  
• Once the water has collected on the plate a second time, transfer it to a suitable bottle or container for future storage.

  Ensure to mark it and keep it out of reach of children. You don't want someone mistaking it for a drink! It usually has an off-white color. Some of the natural food tenderizers will have a golden tinge to them.

  Usually, before I get rid of this ash, I will do two to three more percolations with water before getting rid of this ash.

  When you need more Mukereka or natural food softener, repeat the above process with fresh ash.
  
• We now live on a farm. Before then, I would send for one or two litres of the natural food softener or Musherekha that had already been prepared this way. It would last me a long time.

  My husband and I visited an old friend in Luhya land who told us that this liquid food tenderizer can last for up to a year.

  If you don’t live on a farm, you can also request a friend for some of the ash and do the above process yourself.
• You now have your liquid food softener or musherekha that is ready to be used in your recipes.

  I trust you will enjoy your recipes as you use this Munyu. I’m bringing these recipes your way very soon!

  Enhance your hospitality for the glory of God.