Nigerian Catfish Pepper Soup

Catfish pepper soup is a spicy watery soup cooked with catfish and an assortments of different spices which are called pepper soup spices. So in this recipe I will be writing on how to prepare catfish pepper soup.

It is common to find many people cooking catfish pepper soup with fresh catfish but some people also use roasted catfish.

Whether you use fresh catfish or dried/roasted catfish, when properly cooked the outcome is a delicious

It is a favourite cold weather soup either in raining season or during winter.

In Nigeria Catfish pepper soup is a common soup sold sold at relaxation joints or bars as it is believed to pair well with any type of drink as long as it is cold.

In fact, Nigerians abroad always stock up pepper soup spice mix because it boosts the immune system and keeps their insides warm at winter.

For Nigerians in Diaspora, you can get fresh Nigerian food ingredients from my shop here and it will be delivered to you in 3 days if you are in The United Kingdom and in 7 days if you are in Europe or The United States of America.

Catfish Pepper Soup Ingredients

The ingredients for catfish pepper soup are listed below;

2 tablespoons Crayfish powder
½ tablespoon Seasoning powder or 2 seasoning cubes
4 tablespoon salt
1 cleaned & frozen Catfish (cut into 4)
4 cups water
5 Efirin leaves (scent leaves/basil)
3 heaped tablespoons Catfish pepper soup spice mix

Pepper soup spices mix consist of over 10 Nigerian spice and getting these spices may be hard. But to make it very easy, you can order for your pepper soup spice mix by clicking on the pepper soup spice picture above.

Also, the catfish I will be using for this recipe had already been cleaned using the first step of catfish cleaning.

After washing the catfish to remove the slime, I decided to freeze it because I was not ready to cook with it yet.

So in this recipe, I will be including how I thawed my frozen catfish to make it fresh again while doing the second step in catfish cleaning to get it ready for my pepper soup.

But if you would like to read about how I properly clean my catfish to remove the slime you will find all you need to know in this blog post – How To Wash Catfish

So, now I will be writing about how to turn the pepper soup ingredients stated above into a delicious catfish pepper soup.

How to prepare catfish pepper soup

As stated earlier, i will be using my frozen catfish which was cleaned using the first step of catfish cleaning.

I will be doing the second step of catfish cleaning as well as preparing my catfish pepper soup and here are the steps below;

Clean the efirin leaves in water and slice thinly.
Boil hot water.
Put the frozen catfish in big bowl and pour the hot water all over it.
Add 3½ tablespoons salt in the water and cover for 10 minutes – the hot water will help to quickly remove the ice from the fishes as well as also removing any slime residue still on the fishes.
After 10 minutes, separate the fishes and put them on a basket to drain out excess water.
Put the pot on the cooker .
Add 4 cups of water, peppersoup spice mix, crayfish powder, salt and seasoning.
Mix very well and add catfish
Mix gently and cook for 20 minutes
After 20 minutes, add the sliced basil leaves
Mix gently and cook for 2-3 minutes

Delicious Catfish Pepper soup is Ready and I will be enjoying it with Boiled plantains which is my favourite at the moment.

If you would like to read my boiled plantains recipe, please click here

Catfish Pepper soup Combinations

If you are a regular on this blog on thing you would have noticed most Nigeran foods are versatile because they can be combined with other foods as well.

I will be stating some popular and delicious catfish pepper soup combinations

Catfish pepper soup with plantains (steamed or boiled)
Catfish pepper soup with yam
Catfish pepper soup with rice ( white rice)
Catfish pepper soup with Eko/Agidi

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