Contests Announcement|Cooking Challenge - Cook Your Traditional Dish |

kennie19 (49)Verified✓in SteemWomen Club • 3 years ago

Good day steemwomen, hope you all are doing wonderful.

My name is kennie, a citizen of Nigeria, i reside in the southern region of the country.
I will be delighted to share my traditional dish know as Afang soup.

History of Afang Soup
Afang soup is a traditional dish or cuisine of the Efiks part of Nigeria particularly people of Cross Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State.
Afang Soup is made using afang leaves otherwise known as Ukazi leaves and water leaves.
Afang soup is one of my favourite delicacy because of its rich contents. The vegetables contains nutrients that is required by our bodies apart from the nutritional value its also medicinal and contains fiber that helps the body cells function properly.

Benefit of Afang Soup
Afang soup contains folic acid and vitamin A.

*Folic acid"" is a type of Vitamin B usually found in foods likes dried beans, peas, liver, beets, spinach among others.
Folic acid helps the body to produce and maintain its cells.
Folic acid also help to treat deficiency and certain types of anaemia.
Folic acid supplement ensure that protein is properly metabolized, which helps the body to maintain a stable insulin level. A consistent insulin level helps the body to burn unwanted or excess fat and burnt fact increases weight loss.
Folic acid eliminate defect of spinal bifida, reduces neutral tube deficiency association with brain or spinal cord.
Folic acid helps in preventing and treating of low blood levels of folate and high blood levels of homocysteine.
Afang soup is highly recommended for pregnant women it is highly nutritious for both pregnant women and their unborn babies to consume Afang soup because of it component such as folic acid (vitamin B9) and it helps to eliminate problems that posses a threat to the baby such as difficulties in learning, movement problems, bladder and bowel problems. Babies in the first trimester is in dire need of folic acid.
yes folic can be gotten from any certified drug stores but its extra and best in soups.

Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a general term for a group of fat soluble compounds highly important for human health.
Vitamin A is essential to the body, it helps to maintain healthy vision, ensure that the immune system and organs are functioning well, it also aids proper growth and development of babies in the womb.
Vitamin A can be consumed by both men, women, children and adolescents.
It is of essence that all class of persons consume vitamin A to lower the risk of certain cancers such as cervical, bladder and lung cancer.
Vitamin A reduces acne, strengths the bone and promote healthy growth and reproduction.

Ingredients
500 kilogram of water leaves
3cubes of maggi
¼cup of blended crayfish
Stock fish
Palm oil
Periwinkle or isam
1kg of Afang leaves also known as ukazi
Salt
Goat meat
Dried fish
Onions
Red pepper
Seasoning
Dried Cameron pepper

Pictures of my grinded crayfish

Picture of my cooking palm oil

Pictures of my water leaves, Ukazi leaves, stock fish,maggo,salt, Cameron pepper, seasoning, kpomo,dried fish,stock fish, red pepper, goat meat and periwinkles

Preparation
It is advisable to use fresh leaves or vegetables in cooking this native soup; afang soup, nevertheless if you live in an area where you don't have access to it you can use dried or frozen ones.

Slice the onions and blend or grind the pepper and set aside.
Pictures of my sliced and grinded pepper

Soak the dried fish and stockfish in a warm or hot water after removing the center bones and wash thoroughly using just water. Put it in a put add your onions, grinded pepper, maggi, seasoning, salt and a half cup of water, you can hard more water to it if you're cooking a hard stock fish and cook for 3-5 minutes on a medium heat

Wash the meat season with seasoning of your choice, add 1 cube of maggi, salt, grinded pepper, onions. You can marinate it for 10-15mins in a freezer. In a medium heat place the pot on fire for the meat to boil out its water, you can add extra water if the meat is not soft to your taste, this will take 5-8mins to cook.

Picture of my washed and seasoned meat

Wash and clean your afang leaves also known as Ukazi if you have a blender you can blend it adding little water or use mortal to pound it. The grounded Ukazi acts as a thickner for the soup thus there's no need for a thickner like ofor, cocoyam or egusi.
Picture of my washed Afang leaves

Clean the kpomo to remove dirt and sand,soak in hot or warm water, chop it into pieces,you can steam it separately or add it to your cooking pot of meat, but i prefer steaming it separately.

Pictures of my washed, cleaned and sliced kpomo

Next pick the water leaves, wash it thoroughly to remove sand, dirt and dust. I prefer slicing the water leaves or vegetables myself at home to retain the nutrients, it is advisable to wash all vegetable before slicing them so as to not loose some nutrients.
If you don't like your afang to have traces of water, all you need to do is squeeze the water leaves tightly before adding it to the soup.

Pictures of water leaves processes

The prewinkle or isam does not require much washing as it is already cleaned by the sellers, you only need to rinse it once and that's all.

Picture of periwinkle

After all this is done, it is time to put the soup together, combine the proteins (fish, stock fish, kpomo and goat meat), add your spices but make sure to taste if the ones you used in steaming are okay or not before adding so it won't be excess, at this point add your palm oil.
You can either add your palm oil before adding the leaves or after adding the leaves,but i prefer adding palm oil before adding the leaves so that i will not feel the raw taste of the palm oil, this should be a half cup or more depending on how oily you want it

Picture of my combined ingredients

Picture showing my oil consistency

I added the dried steamed fish late so it won't scatter, at this point you can now add your water leaves stir and cover it to boil for 3-5mins, allow it to bring out its water before adding any seasoning.

Picture of the water leaves boiling out its water

5mins later add your afang leaves, periwinkle also known as isam and grounded crayfish stir and your afang soup is ready.
Picture of my afang leaves, periwinkle and crayfish

Afang soup can be served with eba, pounded yam, fufu or semo.

For those in diaspora who wishes to try out this recipe you can use spinach leaves in substitute for water leaves.

Thank you all for reading through, i hope you will try out this recipe.

I invite @mickky13 and @exero

Many thanks to @event-horizon and @steemwomenclub for organising this wonderful contest in conjunction with
@pensiff
@saracampero
@ngoenyi
@nadiaturrina
@tugcenindolabi
1
Special thanks to @@@svm038 for approving this contest i deeply appreciate.