Egusi Soup
Easy Nigerian Egusi soup in easy steps it is very delicious too.
Ingredients
- Ingredient
- 600g Egusi (Melon) seeds
- 2 Cooking spoons red palm oil
- Beef: Best cut and shaki (cow tripe)
- Fish: Dry Fish and Stock Fish
- 3 tbsp Ground crayfish
- Pepper and Salt (to taste)
- Vegetable: Nigerian pumpkin leaves, spinach
- 3 Small stock cubes
- Ogiri Okpei (traditional locust bean seasoning: optional)
Instructions
Before Preparation (Caking Method)
- Before preparing the soup, soak the dry fish for about half an hour.
- If you are using the very tough stockfish, boil it for 20 minutes and leave in the pot with the hot water to soak for about an hour.
- If using the softer stockfish, you can just soak them in cool water till you can break them apart with your hands.
- When the fish and stockfish are soft, debone and break them into sizeable chunks.
- Much closer to your cooking time, grind the egusi with a dry mill.
- Grind the crayfish and the dry pepper separately and set aside.
- Wash the vegetable to be used. Cut into tiny pieces.
- Boil the shaki, stock fish and dry fish in 1 litre of water with the stock cubes till they are well done.
- First sign of a done shaki is that the cuts will start curling on itself.
- Wash the beef to be used for the soup, add it to the pot and cook on medium heat till done.
Directions
- This method produces a healthier egusi soup as there is no frying involved. It requires less oil too.
- In this method, as soon as the shaki, fish and meat are done, remove them from the stock (water used in cooking the meat and fish) and place in a different pot or plate.
- Add the ground egusi to the stock and stir.
- If the stock from cooking your meat and fish is not enough to give you a medium consistency, add some water to get the consistency of evaporated milk or a bit thicker. It will not be as smooth as evaporated milk though.
- Cover and cook till the egusi cakes.
- Stir and add a little bit more water. watch it closely so that it does not burn.
- Repeat step 3, adding only a small quantity of water at a time.
- After about 25 minutes, you will notice the clear egusi oil coming to the surface of the soup.
- Add the red palm oil and pepper to taste and cook for about 7 minutes.
- You know it is good to continue when the palm oil and egusi forms a good blend of light yellow colour.
- Add the cooked meat and fish. If using pumpkin leaves or any other soft vegetable, add it at this time and stir the soup.
- Add salt to your taste, stir and leave to simmer for 2 minutes maximum. Turn off the heat.
- Leave to stand for about 5 minutes before serving.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!