HOW TO COOK EGUSI OKRA (MELON SEEDS WITH OKRA) SOUP

The Egusi Okra soup, generally including meat or fish, is a nutritional recipe able to stimulate appetite by its pleasant taste and scent, to slow down weight loss, and to boost the immune system through its essential amino acids and fatty acids, minerals, vitamins (A, E, and folate). The soup is mostly eaten with a staple food named fufu.

The Egusi Okra soup recipe is based on locally available and easily affordable ingredients such as egusi, okra and red palm oil. Egusi and okra can easily be grown by low income earners and red palm oil is the main cooking oil easily affordable all year round. Egusi are seeds which, after removal from the fruits, are usually washed, sun-dried, decorticated and ground for cooking.

INGREDIENTS 

– 2 handfuls of Ground dry melon / Egusi

– Blended Okro (6 pieces)

– 25 kg  of Boiled assorted meat

– 4 Snails

– Dried stockfish and smoked stock fish.

– ½ oz  Periwinkle

– ½ oz  Crayfish

– A handful of Ugu leaf

– ½ oz  Locust Beans

– Seasoning

– 4 Small yellow chilli pepper

– 1 ½ cooking spoon of Palm oil

METHOD

Step1          Soak the melon (Egusi) in a bowl of water, add a few slices of onion inside, then leave to soak for 3mins.

Step 2        Add  1 ½ cooking spoon of palm oil in the cooking pan, slice a bit of onion and fry the melon. Add some water, pepper, the locust beans and seasoning.

Step 3        Stir up everything then include the crayfish, meat and stockfish. Leave to cook for 15mins.

Step 4      Add the blended Okra and stir, if too thick, add some little water and stir do not cover.  Add the periwinkle, and then cook for 10 minutes.

Step 5        Add a few handfuls of vegetable, leave to cook for 5mins, then cover, taste the seasoning if okay.

Step 6        Serve with pounded yam, Eba, Fufu or Amala.