Nigerian Egusi Soup Recipe

Creamy, nutty egusi soup is a staple in homes and bukas, or avenue food items stalls, throughout Nigeria and in a lot of areas of West Africa. The soup normally takes its identify from egusi, or agushi―the seeds that both of those thicken and flavor it. Egusi soup commonly attributes meat (these as beef, smoked poultry, goat, cow skin, and offal) and seafood (smoked dried fish or stockfish), as very well as awara (Nigerian tofu), mushrooms, and greens. 

Oil-abundant egusi seeds occur from compact, tough green melons speckled with cream-colored spots or streaks, which makes them resemble watermelons. Often referred to as the white-seed melon (cucumeropsis mannii), it’s associated to other cucurbitaceous gourds, melons, and squashes. You may also see it labeled bitter melon (not to be perplexed with the bitter melon popular to Asian cooking), a reference to its white flesh, which can be somewhat bitter.

The seeds are to start with extracted from the melon’s flesh then solar-dried till their shells flip mustard yellow. Once dried, they are stored as-is, deshelled (both by device or by hand, a a lot more prized and costly process), or floor into a coarse flour.

The seeds have a variety of culinary employs: they can be toasted for a snack ground and pressed to extract a cooking oil blended into nut butter and milled into a flour for baking or thickening soups and stews―I’ve even produced a pesto of sorts with it. Mgbam, a textured protein common in eastern Nigeria, is made by combining ground egusi seeds and usu, a mushroom tuber (akin to a truffle but devoid of the powerful flavor).

To make egusi soup, I start off by building a inventory infused with beef, red onion, and floor crayfish. When which is completely ready, I blend coarsely floor egusi seeds with chopped crimson onion and h2o to variety a thick, creamy paste, which I dollop into the simmering stock and poach, undisturbed, until eventually the paste congeals. I then give almost everything a stir to crack up the paste, making curds. The completed soup, which can be topped off with a blend of wilted pumpkin and waterleaf greens, eats extra like a stew. You may possibly hear folks say, “I am consuming soup” or “I’m licking soup,” when ingesting egusi these typical phrases are a nod to its thicker regularity.

Choose observe that my edition is only one particular of quite a few. Across Nigeria, egusi soup may differ from region to region and palate to palate. You can uncover distinctions in the proteins, seasoning, and greens used, and, a lot more importantly, in the way the egusi itself is ready. For instance, a pal of mine from the east shared his recipe for a creamier fashion of egusi in which the floor seeds  are stirred into the inventory and cooked, resulting in an even, creamy consistency he finishes the soup with delicate herbs that increase layers of freshness and taste. In distinction, Egusi Ijebu from the southwest of Nigeria is equally creamy but utilizes toasted and ground egusi seeds, has tomatoes in the inventory, and omits the greens. 

Egusi soup is typically paired with swallows (comfortable cooked doughs designed from roots, tubers, vegetables, flours, and more) like eba, fufu, and pounded yam (imagine mashed potatoes without having seasoning, so the sweet pleasant flavors of the yam glow through). You can also provide egusi with white rice (typically parboiled extended-grain), dodo (fried plantains), and other starchy preparations, such as boiled yam or plantain, or enjoy it on its have.