Palmnut Soup

This is a very delicious meal, which is very labour intensive, takes quite a while to prepare but is well worth the effort in my opinion. I am showing the óriginal'way of preparing it. Now we have canned palm soup base which eliminates the pounding of the palmnuts. This recipe makes a lot so feel free to adjust it to suit yourself.

 

 

Ingredients:

1 Olonka of palmnuts

1/2 Cowfeet (about 1 kilo)

2 lb Meat

1 lb Tripe

7 Round Crabs

2 Smoked Salmons

6 Onions

10 Tomatoes

6 Garden Eggs

15 kpakpo shito pepper

2 Ginger (thumb size)

6 Garlic cloves

Anis (pinch)

3 Maggi cubes

Start off by picking out any husks then washing the palmnuts. Just with plain water.

Place in a large pot and boil for about 45 minutes to an hour. You want it soft enought to fall off the nut when squeezed between you thumb and fore finger.

In the meantime wash the cowfeet, they are usaully cut for you at the market.

Wash and cut up your meet if it isn't already.

Cut and thoroughly wash the tripe. Most of the time it has a lot of sand in it so I prefer to run it under the tap. However you manage it, just get all the sand out.

Puree the ginger, garlic, anis and 1 onion. Pour this over the cowfeet, tripe and meat. Crumble 1 maggi cube over it and steam. I got a tough cut of meat so it cooked evenly with the feet. The tripe might get softer sooner.

Clean the salmon and set aside. This will be the very last thing to go in since it is very soft and we dont want it breaking apart in the soup.



If the crabs are fresh from the market and still alive, just pop them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. They simply go to sleep and die. This way they dont suffer and you dont get pinched by their claws.

To clean them, lift up the middle sail-shaped shell and using it as a handle, pull the whole shell off. This leaves a small mid section and the legs. Remove the pointed tips of the legs and wash thoroughly to get all the sand out. Rub off any mud that might be caked between the legs and body. Set them aside till later.

In a seperate pot, place the tomatoes, garden eggs, pepper and the rest of the onions. Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.

Pound the nuts in a mortar. If you are unfamiliar with the mortar, it is the deeper one used for pounding corn, groundnuts etc. You want to pound it until it looks fibrous and the black kernels are loose.

Pour it all out into a large bowl add about a litre of hot water. The water shouldn't be so hot that you cant put your hand into it. The heat from the water will help to seperate the edible part of the palmnut from the fibers and kernels. So using your hand, take the fiber part bit by bit and squeeze the liquid out and set aside. Then remove the kernels, shaking off the liquid back into the bowl. Keep doing this until you have mostly liquid with a few fibers in it.

Now place a colander over a pot or bowl and gently pour the palmnut mixture into it. You need to do this gently because there are some particles tha settle at the bottom and you dont want to pour them in. Leave a little of this liquid in the bottom with the black bits. Rinse out the colander and place over a different pot or bowl and gently repeat the process. Do this 3 or 4 times till you have no bits in the bottom of the pot/bowl.

Now pour it over the steaming meat and let it continue to cook over a high fire.

Blend the tomatoes and pepper and using a colander, add it to the big pot of goodness.

Skin and deseed the garden eggs and blend as well. This blends pretty smooth so doesnt need to pass through the colander.

Lastly, blend and add the onions. Add the remaining 2 cubes and some salt. Not too much though, since the soup will thicken. Check how tender the cowfeet and meat are. When they are soft enough, add the crabs. The cook really fast. They are ready when they turn red.

Add the salmon at this stage and reduce the heat. Stir carefully so you dont break the fish. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes longer and it is ready.

Serve with Omo tuo (rice balls), fufu, banku or eba.

If you are using the palm soup base, add the 1 litre of hot water (boiling this time) to it and using a laddle, stir it till it is smooth and seive it into the pot of steaming meat.

Tilapia Soup

I have been having some trouble with my camera lately. So for now, I either don't blog/post anything, or I have to use my phone, which I did for this post. So please excuse the picture quality, I'm still working out my lighting and angles.

I don't particulary like fresh fish soup, but my husband loves it. So, I decided to make him some Tilapia soup. It turned out so good, I ate most of it myself. Who woulda thought?!

Ingredients:

2 large Tilapia (scaled and cut into 3 or 4 pieces each)
5 Garden eggs
6 Tomatoes
2 Onions
10 peppers
Salt.

Sprinkle a level teaspoonful of salt over the fish and toss it so all the pieces get some. Leave it to marinate.

Cut off the stalks on the garden eggs then slice them in half, lengthwise. Peel the onions then place them along with the tomatoes (still whole), pepper and halved garden eggs into 1 litre of water, cover and boil.

The tomatoes will cook first. When they are soft and almost breaking apart, take them and the pepper out and blend till smooth. Sieve using a colander. Take out 3 of the 5 garden eggs and pour the pureed tomatoes back into the pot. Pour watr over the 3 garden eggs to cool them, then remove the skin and seeds.

By the time you have done this, the onions should be cooked, so you can add them to the garden eggs and blend them  together. This will not be sieved so be sure to blend them thoroughly, then pour the mixture into the pot.

Add the Tilapia and cover. Add more water if it looks too thick. Check the salt in the soup and add more if necessary. Boil it gently until the fish is cooked, about 10 minutes.

Serve it just as it is, with the garden eggs left in the soup.

You could also eat it with fufu, banku, yam, potatoes or rice.

Enjoy and let me know how you liked it.

Yam Fufu with Fresh Fish Soup

Over the weekend I had Yam fufu and fresh fish soup. Yam fufu brings back fond memories of growing up in Awudome. I had an aunt who especially liked Yam fufu. No matter what kind we were having, be it Cocoyam, Cassava, Plantain, or a blend, she would always have some Yam cooked on the side to make her yam fufu.


Here are the Ingredients I used


1 1/2 pounds fresh fish

1 tuber of Yam

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 medium size onions (plus a quarter for spicing fish)

6 - 8 medium size tomatoes

3 large garden eggs

1/2 cup cooking oil

1 handful pepper (kpakpo shito)

3 cloves garlic

Black pepper

Salt

Scale and cut the fish into the sizes you want. This could be done for you by the fishmonger depending on where you buy it. Wash and drain the fish, then mash or blend the garlic, onions and 5 peppers till you have a paste. Add a pinch of black pepper and about half a teaspoon of salt to the paste and mix in the fish gently so it doesn't fall apart.

After about 10 minutes heat the oil in a frying pan. As the oil heats, put the flour in a plate and lightly coat the fish. When the oil is hot enough, gently place the fish in it.

Fry the fish till it turns golden brown. Drain on paper towels to soak up any excess oil.

As the fish fries, place the onions, tomatoes, garden eggs and pepper in a pot and add 1 litre of water, cover and boil. Boil them for about 10 minutes. The tomatoes cook first, then the peppers, garden eggs and last, the onions. If overcooked, the tomatoes will break up, releasing their seeds into the soup, which is not what you want.

Use a ladle to scoop out the tomatoes and pepper and blend them. Use a seive to strain the puree back into the pot. You should be left with skin and seeds in the seive. Next, check if the garden eggs are cooked. You want them soggy, so when the skin starts to look transparent and like it is seperating from the flesh, it is cooked. Remove the garden eggs from the pot and put them in cold water. Peel off the skin and remove the seeds. Blend into a fine paste. Add this also to the boiling pot. When the onions are soft enough to run a fork through, break them into chunks and blend. The garden egg and onion puree dont need to be strained, this gives the soup its thickness. Keep the pot boiling throughout.

Cover and boil for 5 minutes, then add the fish. Add salt and reduce heat till the soup is boiling gently.

Now, peel the Yam tube and cut it into fist sized pieces. Wash thouroughly to get all the sand off. Place on a pot, add enough water to cover the Yam and boil. Boil until a fork goes through easily and the yamm is fluffy. Drain off the water but keep covered to retain the heat.

Wash the fufu Mortar and pestle with warm water. Don't use soap just before using since wood absorbs the soap and transfers it to the food. Get a bowl with clean water and a low kitchen stool and with very clean hands, you are set.

Place the hot pieces of Yam into the Mortar, one at a time and pound theminto a fluffy powdery mass before adding the next piece. When half the pieces have been added, start to turn the yam which should be getting sticky by now, with your right hand (the left hand should never touch food) . Alternate you hand movements with the pestle hits, to form some sort of tick-tock rhythm. Do this carefully to avoid a visit to the emergency room.

Depending on the quantity you are preparing, divide the yam into 2 or 3 batches, so you don't overload the mortar.

When the yam mass is sticky enought o be shaped into a ball, it is ready, although, some people like their's really soft in which case you would keep pounding till the desired softness. (the more/harder you pound, the softer it gets).

Shape it into a neat ball or oval, place in a soup dish and serve with hot soup.

This dish is best enjoyed when eaten with your fingers but a spoon will work just as well.

It is a must-try dish for those that don't know it, and I'm sure will bring fond memories to those that do.