How to cook egusi, The most popular nigerian soup.
Hi Steemians, today i will be teaching how to prepare the most popular soup in nigeria.
Amongst all soups in nigeria, it is the most popular soup and i will teach you the recipe for (in igbo language, it's called "ofe egusi" ).
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This are the ingredients you will be needing:
-1. Meat of choice 2kg (beef, chicken turkey, goat meat, or assorted meat)
- 4 cups of egusi (melon)
- Dry fish (about two medium sizes)
- 1 cup of ground crayfish
- A good quantity of washed bitter leaf.
- 3 cubes of knorr, maggi or other natural sweetener
- 250ml of palm oil
- About 2 liters of water
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- One medium size Stock fish head
With this ingredients, we are good to go baby!!
Alright.. So Grind the four cups of egusi with a dry blender or hand grinding machine(may not be common abroad, so use blender) and pour in a bowl. Add about a cup of water to it and stir to make a very thick paste.
Be sure that the bitterleaf is properly washed, it is advisable to remove over 97 percent of the bitter taste. How? this process is known to most Nigerians, it involves washing and squeezing the bitter leaves for several minutes in a very big bowl using salt and a drop of palm oil.
Parboil the meat of your choice with all the necessary ingredients, it is advisable to parboil meat with some ingredient before adding to the main food, this improves the taste of the meat. Parboil for about ten minutes, then add water and cook till the meat is tender and the stock (water) is about to dry. Use two cubes of knorr, one spoon of kitchen glory beef spice (optional), a teaspoon of salt and half cup of sliced onions.
Soak the dry fish and stock fish in a bowl with hot water and wash thoroughly to remove sand and center bone, then set aside. Tear open the head of stock fish and wash.
Get set, We are about to launch now!!
- Set your cooking pot on fire and add 250ml of palm oil (red oil), allow to heat for a minutes but don’t allow to bleach. Add the egusi(grinded melon) paste and keep stirring for the next eight to ten minutes to form seed-like crumbs.
Then transfer the already cooked meat into the pot, stir, add the washed dry fish, stock fish, ground crayfish, 2 cubes of maggi or knorr, 3 cups of water. then cover half way and allow to boil for the next ten to fifteen minutes.
Add the already washed bitter leaves, (or [fluted pumpkin]), add salt and pepper to taste.
You may add another cube of knorr. Allow to boils for five to ten minutes and you just made a delicious egusi soup.
Nigerian egusi soup could be served with rice, but most especially eba
Or pounded yam together.
Note: This soup can also be made with fluted pumpkin, the same process should be followed the only different is that bitter leaves should be replaced.