Nigerian Pepper Soup Recipe

Pepper soup―a comforting Nigerian soup seasoned with a spice mix and new lemongrass―is preferred calendar year-round, enjoyed across the nation and served by road food suppliers in bars and eating places from the rainy season (March to November) to harmattan (November to March), the dry period that commences with dust-laden winds blowing over the country from the Sahara. The name is a misnomer mainly because the soup is just not essentially described by a pepper-forward flavor profile―the flavors are considerably extra complex, with nutty, bitter, woodsy, and floral notes, as well as heat. 

This 1-pot dish marries a deeply-flavored broth with a protein. For meat, it is frequent to use hen (stewing hens, alternatively of broilers, are chosen for their fuller flavor), goat, or cow’s foot, alongside with an assortment of offal, this kind of as tripe, intestines, liver, and kidney. As for seafood, you are going to see versions produced with tilapia, catfish, croaker, snapper, or dried fish. There are places that even give ‘point-and-kill’ option, in which you can pick dwell catfish from a tank and have it be well prepared to order―whole, minimize into chunks, head included or removed, with herbs, and with varying spice concentrations, according to your preferences. And then there is certainly get together pepper soup, commonly built with a combine of meat and offal, which is generally served as the very first class at Nigerian parties. 

The broth is seasoned with a blend of generally two or more indigenous spices (whole, crushed, or finely floor), like erhe (calabash nutmeg), urheri/uda (grains of Selim), alligator pepper (grains of paradise), umilo (cocoplum), and gbafilo (tough-skinned plum). As soon as you have made a decision on your protein, it’s simply just a issue of combining it with the spice mix, water, and herbs like lemongrass leaves, which are used as medication and foodstuff in Nigeria, integrated into tonics, tea, broths). Rising up, my mum frequently added lime leaves (not a widespread addition but a single that pairs perfectly). Many others like to add some heft to their broth by incorporating tomatoes, onions, and clean chiles. To complete, it’s typical to incorporate some shredded scent leaf (Ocimum gratissimum), an herb which is connected to mint and basil. 

My favorite model of pepper soup is from the Niger Delta location in southern coastal Nigeria, which is distinguished by the point that it takes advantage of much more spices in its spice mix. When I was a kid, my mum and grandma built numerous versions of it, which include a thick, creamy soup called ukodo, in which yams and/or unripe plantains are cooked specifically in the broth seasoned with akaun (a native alkaline rock salt that contributes a a little mineral and earthy essence). As the greens prepare dinner, they soften, yielding a pepper soup with a thicker, sauce-like consistency.

For the version below, which is produced with hen and impressed by my mum and grandmother, I begin by mixing, toasting, and grinding spices―nutty erhe, smoky and musky urheri, fragrant and spicy alligator pepper with notes of ginger, pepper and cardamom, and nutty-tasting umilo and gbafilo―to yield a deeply-flavored, comprehensive-bodied blend. The moment that is performed, I mix the chicken, ground crayfish (a powder created from smoked and/or dried shrimp and prawns regarded domestically as crayfish), lemongrass leaves (I use stalks of lemongrass when I can not locate the tall, skinny leaves), and the spice combine, along with drinking water, in a pot. As before long as the rooster is tender, I end it with lime leaves and year with Nigerian dry pepper (you can use cayenne if you have it) and salt.

You can play around with the proteins. If you might be utilizing tender rooster (broilers), fish, or prawns and other seafood that get much less time to prepare dinner, I advocate cooking the soup reduced and gradual and also adding bones or shells to the pot to establish and concentrate the flavor. For seafood versions, I like to use prawn or shrimp inventory as a substitute of water. At the time the flavor has created, I pressure out the bones or shells, increase the seafood, and simmer until finally cooked. 

At house, I enjoy serving pepper soup with evenly salted boiled yam, just-ripe plantains, and lashings of thick, unrefined pink palm oil―I really advise you do the similar.