Best Egusi Soup Recipe | Cheap And Delicious

Cooking egusi soup can be quite expensive depending on the taste you want to achieve. In this recipe, I will be telling you some things about egusi soup, the ingredients for egusi soup and ofcourse how to cook egusi soup.

Cooking egusi soup can be quite expensive depending on the taste you want to achieve. In Nigeria, it is generally believed that the more ingredients you add the sweeter your soup would be.

In some cases this is true.

But in this recipe, I will be writing about how to cook egusi soup on a small budget and also achieve a delicious soup.

Trust me, this is very possible.

As we continue, let me tell you a little about egusi soup.

About Egusi Soup

Some people call it egusi stew but the correct name is egusi soup. Egusi soup is a very popular Nigerian soup cooked with a wide variety of animal proteins such as seafoods – fish, periwinkles,crayfish, prawns, and many more – beef, chicken, turkey and even bush meat.

This soup derives its name from the main ingredient which is egusi seeds. Egusi seeds are extracted from mature egusi plant fruit. After the fruit is cut and the seeds extract, the seeds are properly cleaned with water .

This proper cleaning reveals shelled yellow seeds which are then properly dried.

Traditionally, the sun drying method was used to dry the shelled seed but in recent times, mechanical drying equipments are used for efficiency and to fast track production because of the ever-growing demand for egusi nationally and internationally.

After drying, the flexible yellow shell of the egusi seeds are peeled by hand or with the use of a machine to get the white egusi seeds which are used to cook egusi soup.

How to cook egusi soup

Egusi is a very common soup and as a result there are several egusi soup recipes. Although the use of egusi seeds when cooking egusi soup is compulsory, several other ingredients can also be included depending on the taste you crave or want to achieve.

Some of the common ingredients are:

Ugu leaves click here for recipe
Bitter leaf
Okro Find recipe here
Ewedu leaves
Okazi/ukazi leaves
Efirin or scent leaves or basil leaves
Amunututu leaves find recipe here

Ingredients for Egusi Soup

1¼ cups egusi seeds
4 Eja panla/panla egun (roasted hake fish)
ponmo (cowskin)
2 medium sized onions
½ cup crayfish
½ cup palm oil
6 ata rodo (scotch bonnet peppers)
1 teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon seasoning powder or 2 cubes seasoning
3 cups water

Let’s cook egusi soup

Clean eja panla or panla egun (roasted hake fish) in water to remove the dirts or dust that may be attached to it.
Remove the fish head while cleaning so that it does not crumble in your soup thereby filling your soup with bones
Put cleaned fishes in a basket to drain the water
Clean the ponmo ijebu in water to also remove the dirt – if you want to know how to soften or clean your ponmo ijebu either fresh or dried click here
Put a clean pot on your cooker
Add the egusi seed and dry fry on medium heat for 1-3 minutes – stir the egusi continuously to avoid getting burnt
Add crayfish to the dry fried egusi
Dry fry for 1-2 more minutes
Pour the dry fried egusi and crayfish into your blender
Add onions and scotch bonnet peppers
Blend to a smooth paste
Put a clean pot on your cooker
Pour palm oil into the pot and allow it heat up briefly – do not allow it heat up to smoking point
Put cleaned fishes into the hot oil and fry both sides briefly for 3-6 minutes
Add the blended egusi paste
Also rinse out the blender with little water and pour it into the mixture on
Add ponmo, salt and seasoning powder or seasoning cubes
Mix gently and cook for 5 minutes
After 5 minutes, mix the egusi soup to check the soup’s thickness
If the egusi soup is too thick add more water
If you are satisfied with the thickness, then let it cook for 10 more minutes
After another 5 minutes, mix the egusi soup so that it does not burn
Cook for 5 more minutes and egusi soup is ready