Nigerian Egusi Soup Recipe

Creamy, nutty egusi soup is a staple in households and bukas, or avenue food stalls, across Nigeria and in quite a few pieces of West Africa. The soup usually takes its name from egusi, or agushi―the seeds that equally thicken and flavor it. Egusi soup ordinarily attributes meat (this sort of 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-prosperous egusi seeds appear from tiny, tough eco-friendly melons speckled with product-colored places or streaks, which tends to make them resemble watermelons. Often referred to as the white-seed melon (cucumeropsis mannii), it is linked to other cucurbitaceous gourds, melons, and squashes. You may also see it labeled bitter melon (not to be bewildered with the bitter melon prevalent to Asian cooking), a reference to its white flesh, which can be a little bit bitter.

The seeds are initial extracted from the melon’s flesh then sunlight-dried until their shells convert mustard yellow. The moment dried, they are saved as-is, deshelled (either by device or by hand, a more prized and high priced technique), or floor into a coarse flour.

The seeds have a wide variety of culinary takes advantage of: they can be toasted for a snack floor 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 made a pesto of kinds with it. Mgbam, a textured protein well-liked in eastern Nigeria, is designed by combining ground egusi seeds and usu, a mushroom tuber (akin to a truffle but with no the rigorous flavor).

To make egusi soup, I commence by producing a stock infused with beef, purple onion, and ground crayfish. At the time that’s ready, I blend coarsely floor egusi seeds with chopped crimson onion and water to kind a thick, creamy paste, which I dollop into the simmering inventory and poach, undisturbed, right until the paste congeals. I then give every little thing a stir to crack up the paste, generating curds. The completed soup, which can be topped off with a mix of wilted pumpkin and waterleaf greens, eats extra like a stew. You could possibly hear individuals say, “I’m having soup” or “I’m licking soup,” when consuming egusi these frequent phrases are a nod to its thicker consistency.

Acquire note that my version is only one of lots of. Across Nigeria, egusi soup may differ from region to location and palate to palate. You are going to discover discrepancies in the proteins, seasoning, and greens employed, and, extra importantly, in the way the egusi alone is prepared. For occasion, a pal of mine from the east shared his recipe for a creamier model of egusi in which the ground seeds  are stirred into the inventory and cooked, ensuing in an even, creamy regularity he finishes the soup with sensitive herbs that insert levels of freshness and flavor. In distinction, Egusi Ijebu from the southwest of Nigeria is in the same way creamy but utilizes toasted and ground egusi seeds, has tomatoes in the stock, and omits the greens. 

Egusi soup is usually paired with swallows (smooth cooked doughs made from roots, tubers, vegetables, flours, and extra) like eba, fufu, and pounded yam (consider mashed potatoes without seasoning, so the sweet delightful flavors of the yam glow through). You can also provide egusi with white rice (typically parboiled long-grain), dodo (fried plantains), and other starchy preparations, such as boiled yam or plantain, or love it on its possess.