Egusi Soup

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Egusi soup is one of Nigeria’s most popular soups. There are various versions of this soup. But for some reason , I like the richness of this one. There are versions where you do not have to add any tomatoes. I have a recipe which was taught to me by my father (GOD rest his soul). Aren’t daddies the best? I think mine was 🙂

Apart from Ogbono and Okra, Egusi is quite a staple in my home and I learnt that with cooking it, less is actually more with it’s seasoning as Egusi can be slightly sweet. Even with using vegetables, I like using crunchy vegetable for this soup. I prefer pumpkin leaves ie Ugu, but due to location issues, I stick to kale and I add just a bit of water leaves.

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Red kale

 

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There is another version of Egusi with bitter leaves which I really love as much as I do this one. I also have a really rich version of this soup which I developed by myself and it involves the use of the condensed palm nut juice. It is also quite easy to make. I hope to share that recipe with you guys. I love that Nigerian soups can always be made with more than one method. I like this version a whole lot because I get to have my tomatoes and green leafy vegetables.

Without excess talking, here we go

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5.0 from 1 reviews
Egusi Soup
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1-1½ cups of egusi
  • 6pieces of goat meat
  • 6pieces of chopped roasted turkey
  • 8small pieces of dry fish or 1 large one
  • 1 maggi crayfish(any bouillon works)
  • 1 tsp of dry pepper
  • 3tbsps of crayfish
  • salt to taste
  • 1large onion (cut into three parts)
  • 1 habanero pepper ie Ata-Rodo
  • 3medium sized plum tomatoes
  • 1 small red bell pepper
  • 120mls of palm oil
  • 2-3 cups of red or green kale or ugu ie pumpkin leaves
  • 1cup of water leaves or watercress
  • 1 hand full of uziza leaves
Instructions
Prep
  1. Blend the tomatoes and one part of the onion and pour through a wire mesh sieve to remove any excess water
  2. mix the egusi with the crayfish and some luke warm water to form a slightly thick paste
  3. season the chopped turkey with salt and some Cameroon pepper and roast until golden brown
  4. In a cooking pot. season the goat meat with salt, chopped ata-rodo, one remaining part of the onion and the maggi crayfish, pour water enough to cover the meat. Cook the meat on medium heat until done.
  5. wash the dry fish with warm water and soak to soften
Preparation
  1. In a soup pot. pour in your oil and heat thoroughly without bleaching. Slice in the third part of the onion and sauté until translucent. Pour in the sieved tomato blend and fry until the oil floats to the top and the mixture looks like little pebbles. Reduce the heat and add the Egusi paste by using a table spoon to add little dollops of it into the tomato sauce. Let it fry in the tomato sauce like a pancake; making sure to gently flip in between(it does not have to be perfect). After flipping and cooking for a few minutes, stir the mix of the tomato and pepper paste and egusi together. It will look like scrambled eggs. Pour in the meats, dry fish and meat stock, making sure not to add too much water. Gently stir so as not to break the fish. Continue cooking on low heat for about 10minutes; then check for seasonings. (I did not need to add any more seasonings). Fold in all the vegetables along with the tsp of dry pepper(do not cover). Cook for another 2minutes and remove from the heat
Notes
Just like with Ogbono, you have to be careful with seasoning egusi. it is quite sweet and can get salty easily.

 

8 comments

  1. Joy says:

    Welldone Nma! I made d eggroll for my family on saturday, following is recipe, it was a hit. Evritin vanished within 15mins. Making anoda batch dis coming weekend. Love ur blog.

  2. Nnenna says:

    There is egusi soup and there is NigerianLazyChef Egusi soup!! I made this soup yesterday oooo with some fresh titus, meat and co for Le Hubby. His first comment was “this soup fine for face oooo”, just for him to take a morsel of semo and he said “this semo is too small ooooo, this soup make brain die” and this is someone who doesn’t like swallow. He said when his siblings come back from work, i should tell them there is Egusi soup ooooo(nah by force to eat him wife sweet soup). Fast forward to this morning, as early as 10am(public holiday here) Le hubby has jejely gone to make semo for himself ooooo. Anyway my pot of soup has finished oooo, i’m happy cos it was so deli and vexing cos il have to cook again. BEST EGUSI SOUP RECIPE

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