Hello guys This is an African dish and i no that you guys love African salad (Abacha and ugba) for we afriçans we know about this our special dish.

My grandmother always told me that Abacha is not a meal.Though it can be as filling as the other main course meal,African salad is usually eaten as In-between meal .

I remember vividly how my grandma prepared Abacha as soon as she came back from The Eke or Afor market , garnished with a generous serving of garden eggs and the leaves , with some dryfish. Oh, i will Never forget the long vacations spent at Grandma's place.

Abacha is prepared with cassava. The cassava tubers are cooked till done then sliced with a special gratter. The sliced cassava is then soaked in cold water overnight, washed thoroughly and dried under sun. You can also buy the Abacha in markets.

Your African salad will not be completed without ugba, also know as ukpaka, is made from oilbeanseeds. These seeds are cooked for several hours then sliced, washed and left to ferment a little bit.

Ingredients For Abacha

The following are the complete ingredients you need to make a delicious African salad. I will group the ingredients for ease. For African salad, the more ingredients you use, the tastier and more.

"Complete" it will be. Someone people may regard ugba as optional but for me,it is a must.🙂

Minimum Ingredients For Making Abacha (African salad)

• 3 handfuls (Abacha)

• 2 cups ugba (ukpaka)

• 30 cl red palm oil

• 2 tablespoons powdered potash (food tenderizer)

• Fish|mackerel|Dryfish|stock fish

• 1 large onion

• Salt and dry pepper (to taste)

• 4 table spoons ground (crayfish)

• 2 stock cubes (Maggi,|knorr)

• I table spoon ground (Ehu seeds)

• (Calabash nutmeg)

Other Meat And Vegetable for The Abacha.

• 3 fresh utazi leaves (Gongronema latifolium)

• Ponmo,(kanda (cow skin)

• Garden eggs |as much as you can eat

• Garden egg leaves |medium bunch

• 1 medium onion (for serving)

Before To Make Your African salad

• Prepare the Ehu seeds by roasting ,peeling and grinding them with a dry mill. There will be a video on how to to do that.

• If you will use kanda(cow skin ), cook till done and cut into small pieces.

• Depending on your choice of fish (you can also use all of them ), try or roast the mackerel, soak the stock fish in water and debone the dry fish.

• Wash and cut the vegetable into tiny pieces cut the big bulb of onion into tiny pieces cut the medium one in circles. And wash the garden eggs and set aside, no need to cut those

• Grind the crayfish and pepper

• Soak the Abacha in cold water and rinse the ugba with lukewarm water.

• Once the abacha has softened, put in a sieve and drain

• Put the powdered potash in a cup or bowl and pour about 1 cup or cold water. Stir well and you are ready to start making the African salad.

Making The African Salad ( Abacha and ugba)

The key to making. A good African salad is to make sure that all the ingredients are well in corporated. As you will see below, there's a lot of add this, stir, add that, stir. You may wonder why you can't just add everything and stir but if you that, it will be very difficult for you to get a good blend of all the ingredients.

• Pour the palm oil into a sizeable pot. Yes you need all that oil so that your Abacha will not leave a dry feel in the mouth when done. Pour the water from the potash mixture, making sure not to pour the sediments.

• Stir very well and you'll see the oil turn into a yellow paste.

• Add the ground pepper, ground Ehu, crushed stock cubes, cray fish, diced onions and ugba (ukpaka) then stir very well. Please note! That we are doing everything off the stove.

• Add the iru/ ogiri and make sure it is mixed very well.Add the diced kanda/Pomo and stir very well.

• Now add the soaked and drained Abacha and stir till it is well-incorporated in the palm oil paste.

• Add the sliced utazi and salt to taste and stir well. you can also use dry utazi, if the fresh one is not available where you live.it is important that you add salt last because after adding all that seasoning, your Abacha may not even need salt anymore.

• I like my Abacha warm. If you like yours this way too, transfer to a stove at this point and heat it up to your desired temperature at medium heat. When done, turn off the heat and add the sliced garden egg leaves, stir very well and serve.

• If you like your abacha cold, after step 6, add the sliced garden egg leaves,stir and serve with eggs, fish and onions.

You are done! Eat with your chilled palm wine for the full effects🙂

Watch this video below to see how i did mine.

I used minimal ingredients but to see me make abacha with all the possible ingredients.

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I hope this article helps you in preparing your own African salad(Abacha and ugba) and If you like my article please encourage me to write more. ☺️