Nigerian cuisine is known for its comforting and flavourful soups. Every state and tribe have their favourite soup recipe that has been passed from generation to generation for decades or even centuries. Black soup comes from Edo State and is also known as Omoebe. Find out how to make black soup right now!
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1. Ingredients
To achieve that famous complex flavour of black soup, you will need quite a lot of ingredients. However, even though collecting those ingredients may seem like a hassle, in the end, you will be rewarded with a steaming bowl of soup that your whole family will love. Here is what you will need to make black soup:
Read more: How To Make Tapioca
- Bitter leaf – 1 1/2 cups
- Assorted meat and/or offals – 500g
- Efinrin – 1 cup
- Scotch bonnet pepper – 2
- Stockfish – 1 (big)
- Smoked fish – 1 piece
- Crayfish – 1/2 cup
- Palm nut cream or palm oil – 1 1/2 cooking spoons
- Stock cube – 1
- Salt – to taste
If you are having trouble locating efinrin, you can substitute it with fresh basil. It’s also possible to use more or less of the fish ingredients, depending on how strong or mild you prefer the stock in your soups.
2. How to cook black soup
Follow these steps to prepare black soup the traditional way:
Read more: How to Cook Bitter Leaf Soup
- Wash and dice your meats if necessary. Put a pot of water on the stove, bring it to a boil, and cook the meats along with the stockfish, stock cube, and smoked fish until the meat is tender. If you are using both meat and offals, remember to separate those into different pots.
- While the meat is being cooked, you need to process the bitter leaf to reduce its bitterness. Wash the chopped bitter leaf repeatedly until the water is no longer green and foamy. Then soak the bitter leaf in warm water for several minutes and rinse. The bitter taste should be gone at this stage.
- Put your bitter leaf in a blender and blitz until the consistency is smooth, then transfer to a bowl. Next, blitz the efinrin or basil and put in a separate bowl.
- If you are cooking the meats and the offals in different pots, combine the two in the meat pot and stir.
- Blitz the scotch bonnet peppers in the blender and add to the soup mixture. Next, add the palm nut cream or palm oil.
- Allow the palm oil or palm nut cream to melt in the pot for up to 5 minutes. Add the crayfish and stir. Bring up to a boil and taste the stock. Adjust the salt if necessary.
- Gradually add the bitter leaf to the soup, stirring well after each spoonful. Once all bitter leaf is in the pot, cook the soup for several minutes until it thickens and darkens in colour. Add some water or beef stock, stir, and cook for a couple of minutes more.
- Finally, add the efinrin or basil and stir. Efinrin will lose its flavour very fast if cooked for a long period of time, so make sure not to keep your soup heated for more than 3-5 minutes after you add the efinrin. Taste the soup, and if it tastes perfect, take the pot off the heat and serve immediately while your black soup is hot.
Read more: How To Prepare White Soup
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