There are many ways to make Egusi soup with vegetable leaf, and it all depends on your interest and choice. First, what do you want to cook? I particularly like Egusi soup a lot, and it is because the aroma of it brings back memories of my childhood, and growing up in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria; I LOVE MY MOTHER’S EGUSI SOUP WITH UKAZI

Since Egusi is my favorite soup, I would like to write about how to make my favorite Egusi by frying it.  

For this article, I will write about making Egusi soup with goat meat, stockfish, and Ukazi leaf. To cook Egusi soup, these are some of the ingredients you can use in cooking your favorite Egusi soup:

You can prepare Egusi soup with different kinds of vegetables such as Ukazi leaf, Spinach leaf, Ogu leaf, Ukazi leaf, or any other vegetable leaf that you wish to use.

For meat: you can use Chicken, goat meat, cow meat, or bush meat (smoked or fresh)

For fish: you can use fresh fish of any kind such as Stockfish, smoked fish and or smoked prawns, and smoked Crayfish.

To make the soup you must use Mellon seeds, dry, clean, and then blend to softness; there should be no grainy feeling to it after blending the Mellon seeds in a blender when you rub it against two or three fingers.

Other ingredients to use are 2 Peeled Onions, (1 onion for cooking the meat) 1 large Bell pepper, 2 scotch bonnet peppers, 4 pieces of tomatoes, palm oil, and Ukazi leaf. For seasoning, you can add two cubes of Knorr seasoning, and Uziza seeds (Uziza seeds should be crushed to finess). You can use fresh Ukazi leaf, but in Western countries, you can use dry Ukazi leaf. (Soak the dry Ukazi leaves in water before use)

To prepare the meat you wish to use, first wash and clean the meat thoroughly. The goat meat, cow meat, or chicken can be seasoned with any type of seasonings that you prefer, but for this soup, we will use Knorr seasoning cubes and blended Nigerian Uziza seeds, and salt. The name Nigerian before the Uziza seeds is because Uziza is mostly used by Nigerians to add to soup for taste, and the name Uziza is an Igbo named seeds. To begin: Cut 1 onion into pieces to use in cooking the meat. Blend the peppers, cut the other Onion into halves, and cut the tomatoes into pieces before adding all into a blender and blending all.              

Blend the Uziza seeds, Prawns, or Crayfish and place them in a bowl, and set them aside. There are various kinds of Knorr seasonings, such as vegetable, chicken, beef Knorr, and fish Knorr cubes that can be used for any kind of soup you wish to prepare. 

After washing the meat that you prefer to use, (for this Egusi soup, we will use goat meat and stockfish) place the meat inside a cooking pot and add two cups of water to the size of the meat in the pot. Remember to add a teaspoon of salt, and the sliced onion to the meat inside the pot. Add two cubes of Knorr seasoning, and you can add some portion of the blended Uziza seeds into the pot to cook the meat. You may add any meat seasoning of your choice.

There are various meat seasonings available in the stores, but for this write-up on cooking Egusi soup with Ukazi leaf, I will add Tropical Sun Aromatic Meat seasoning. Place the pot with all the ingredient that has been added into the pot onto a cooking gas to cook.

While the meat is cooking on the fire, mix the already blended Egusi seeds with warm water into a consistent lump, and set it aside. You can blend the crayfish or prawns and place them inside a bowl and set it aside. Wash your dry fish or stockfish with hot water. If you are using stockfish, I advise that you cook the stockfish in boiling water for an hour or so until it is soft and then wash it and set it aside before starting the entire cooking process; this way, it would be soft at the time you are ready to cook the Egusi soup.

You should remove all the bones inside the stockfish, and dry fish of your choice. I normally prefer to remove all the bones in the fish so there are no pieces of bones embedded in the fish when it is inside the soup.

After having all these ingredients ready: Place the blended Mellon seeds inside a bowl and add some warm water into it and mix it to softness, until a fine consistency is achieved; it should not be too watery, and then set it aside. Some people add diced onion to the pureed Egusi seeds, but I don’t.  I usually sauteed my onion in the cooking oil first before adding any other ingredients.

Now, place a clean pot on the cooking gas cooker. Add four tablespoons of red palm oil and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Add the pureed onion with peppers and tomatoes into the cooking oil and let it sauté or fried for several minutes until the water in them has evaporated and it looks fried.

Now, after the onion, pepper, and tomatoes have been fried for several minutes, you can add the blended lumpy Mellon seeds into the pot, stir for several seconds and let it fry for 15-20 minutes. Keep stirring the source in the pot as it continues to fry until the pureed Mellon or Egusi has soaked up the oil. This is an indication that it’s time to add other ingredients that you have prepared for the soup such as the washed and boneless stockfish, blended prawns, and cooked meat.

Now you can add your stockfish, goat meat, and goat stock water into the pot of fried Egusi and stir for a few minutes to let it all cook for ten minutes. If you are using any other kind of vegetables such as spinach, or Egu leaf, don’t add it now as it would become too soft and drained of its nutrients if cooked too long in the pot.

Now, is the time to add the washed dry Ukazi or Bitter leaf that you have soaked for several minutes for an hour into the pot and stir. If you are using fresh bitter leaf, you can cook it on its own for several minutes or an hour to get the bitter taste out of it before adding it to the pot of Egusi soup. If you are using dry fish, now is the time to add the washed dry fish and the remaining blended prawn, crayfish, and Uziza seeds. Stir all together and taste the soup before you add water and perhaps two additional cubs of Knorr to add flavour, and then cover the pot of soup to cook for an additional 10 minutes and your Egusi soup is ready. You can eat your Egusi soup with yam flour (pounded yam), Plantain flour, farina, or garri. garri is cassava flour that most Nigerians use in eating Egusi soup.

To make the Cassava flour: Boil water and let it sit for a few seconds after turning off the heater. Then pour in one cup or two cups of Cassava flour or garri into the hot water and stir until there is a sticky to smooth consistency to the feel of the flour. After stirring your Egusi soup, and letting it sit for a few minutes to cool off, you can dish the soup out onto a plate, and eat the Egusi soup with the garri. Please before eating your garri or pounded yam, wash both hands in warm water to eat the garri and Egusi soup with goat meat, and stockfish. Bonaparte.!