Nigerian vegetable soup recipe
Okra Soup is one of the simplest soups in cooking. Some people claim that the main complexity consists in crushing vegetables for the preparation of this soup. But as soon as vegetables will be prepared, cooking of the dish won't take a lot of time.
In the Hausa language, this soup is called Miyan Kubewa. This soup is loved by many segments of the population of Nigeria – from adults to children. Ogbono can be used as an additional component for this soup.
Ingredients
• 250g of Okra,
• 3 tablespoons of red palm oil,
• Beef or cow hem at choice,
• Also, fish can be used,
• 1 river crawfish,
• Pepper and salt – quantity depends on your preferences,
• Onions (if you want),
• Pumpkin leaves,
• Spinach,
• 3 bouillon cubes.
How to cook Nigerian vegetable soup with spinach?
• Before the beginning of the process of cooking soup, you should boil sun-dried fish within 20 minutes in a pot of hot water. It is necessary to achieve such effect that water was absorbed by fish. But also there is such type of sun-dried fish which doesn't demand long cooking. You can get it on the market in Nigeria.
• Cut okra into small pieces. Also, cut crawfish and pepper.
• Wash up pumpkin leaves if you chose this vegetable as the ingredient for the dish and cut into tiny pieces. If you use the frozen spinach, it needs to be refrozen previously in order that it was simpler to crush it.
• If you use a cow hem for soup, then previously you should boil it until it’s done. Add a little water, but don't go too far as the soup has to be dense. Add sun-dried fish. Cooking time of soup depends on the used electric stove.
• As soon as fish is ready, add beef, onions, cubes and cook until they are done. Then add chilled fish and continue to cook.
• Pour red palm oil in other pot and heat a pot to dissolve oil if it is frozen. Add to soup and wait until it begins to boil. This process has to take 5 minutes max.
• Now add vegetables and mix well. Add meat and fish, a crawfish, pepper, and salt to taste. Then mix well.
• Cover a pan and prepare soup for giving.
• Remember that at cooking of soup you shouldn't use the same ingredients at the same time, otherwise all of them will mix up in one taste.
• Such soup can be served with chilled fish.
Recipe for Nigerian vegetable soup
Edikang Ikong has Efiks origin. These are people from Akwa Ibom and Cross River states of Nigeria. Edikang Ikong is very nutritious in spite of the fact that a lot of greens are its cornerstone. This Nigerian soup is made with a large number of pumpkin leaves and leaves of seaweed. It saves from the feeling of hunger and helps to be sated in short terms, enriching an organism with vitamins.
Nigerians can eat this soup after a disease attack as it helps to fill a lack of all necessary vitamins and minerals lost in an organism during a disease. But it is unnecessary to be patient to enjoy this tasty and useful soup.
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Ingredients for Edikang Ikong soup
• 1 kilogram of pumpkin leaves,
• 500 grams of Talinum Triangulare,
• 600 g of beef, Kanda, sun-dried or dry fish at choice,
• pepper,
• 200 ml of palm oil,
• 2 medium bulbs of onion,
• 2-3 bouillon cubes,
• 1 periwinkle.
You can also use other greens or vegetables instead of pumpkin leaves. However, leaves of pumpkin are the universal and classical ingredient.
• 1 kilogram of the frozen spinach,
• the ground frozen spinach – 200 g,
• 250 g of canonigos – the frozen salad.
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Nigerian vegetable soup recipe
- Defreeze spinach, cut into tiny pieces and mix with the ground frozen spinach. Fill in with water and add pumpkin leaves.
- Wash up, clean, and cut salad into tiny pieces. Then add seaweed.
- Wash up and cut the pumpkin into tiny pieces. Place them in a sieve to dry up all water as much as possible.
- Cut Kanda on small pieces. Cook beef, Kanda, and dry fish with 2 pieces of onions or bouillon cubes with the minimum quantity of water.
- When meat is ready, add enough palm oil and pepper and leave for boiling within about 10 minutes. Palm oil serves as a liquid in Edikang Ikong soup. It is necessary to try to observe balance of oil and vegetables that oil remained the only liquid in the soup which isn't demanding addition.
- Add periwinkle and stir slowly within 5 more minutes. It is necessary to observe this time on this stage that seaweed wasn't too cooked.
- Now add pumpkin leaves and salt to taste. Mix pot contents very well and switch off the fire. Cover a pot and leave for five minutes. After that soup is ready to giving.
How to cook Nigerian vegetable soup with ugu?
Nigerian vegetable soup is one more traditional Nigerian soup made with various meat, seafood, and vegetables. It is also served with one of the standard garnishes of Nigeria for soups and stewed dishes – ugu. Ugu is a name of a corrugated pumpkin leaf which is grown up in Nigeria and other tropical African countries. Such leaf can be bought in the market or in the African grocery stores.
Nigerian vegetable soup – ingredients
• 2 pounds of meat,
• 1 medium bulbs of onion,
• hot pepper or ground chili,
• 4 snails prepared for cooking,
• lemon or lime juice,
• 1 pound of smoked or dried fish,
• 1 pound of the sun-dried fish left for the night,
• 1 pound of periwinkles,
• 8 ounces of the whole dry shrimps,
• 8 ounces of ground crayfish,
• 3 pounds of fresh leaves of ugu or 6 packages of dried ugu leaves,
• 2 tablespoons of fresh waterleaf,
• palm oil,
• the salt according to the taste.
How to cook Nigerian vegetable soup?
• Wash up meat under flowing water and place it in a big mug for soup or stewing of dishes. The meat used in Nigerian vegetable soup is usually bull tail, beef, a goat or a chicken.
• Add medium onions and put them in a pot. Add ground chili or hot pepper to taste, and cook mix at an average temperature within 30 minutes.
• Rinse previously prepared snails in cold, flowing water.
• Rinse smoked dried fish under flowing water and place it in salty water within about 5 minutes to kill insects. Rinse with cold water.
• Peel other seafood, wash them.
• Add seafood to a pot and cook in the furnace at an average temperature within 10 minutes. Add more ingredients to a pot if it is necessary.
• Rinse ugu and waterleaf, use a knife to cut leaves into thin strips.
• Add leaves of ugu and waterleaf to a pot mix and let ingredients boil within 15 minutes.
• Add a crawfish, mix ingredients and let boil for another 10 minutes. Add salt according to taste and several tablespoons of palm oil to a pot.
• Remove a pot from heat and serve hot.
As you can see, these soups are rather simple in cooking. The main ingredients of recipes are leaves of pumpkin, meat or fish. You should go to the market and buy these products for preparation of tasty soup. However, you may not follow the recipe precisely. It is enough to observe only the sequence of ingredients to make the soup more various. In general, you can experiment and receive combinations, which will be pleasant to you and your family!
Source: Legit.ng
