The Nigerian Banga Soup Dish

Hello friends,

So today I would be taking us down the road of how to prepare what we know as Banga in Africa.

Quick disclaimer this is my favourite local ditch so don't get upset if I over rate things but I am sure after reading this you would be able to prepare your own Banga soup quit nicely.

I have been having this delicacy since I was a little kid, my mum was a pro at this soup that she was able to convince my dad to start eating it. Initial my dad was not a fan of this soup because he said he didn't like the fact that the soup was so watery but my mom being a pro that she was at this particular dish(you should understand how moms cooking are as a Nigerian), she prepared the banga soup and dished dried it in a local pot known as ewere so as to make it really thick. She then served this delicacy to my dad, he had no choice but to eat the meal after see how delicious it looked, lo and behold from that day onward my dad started eating the soup and even enjoyed it more than others in the house.

So enough of the stories I know you guy want to learn how to prepare this awesome delicacy. well to get started on this meal, you need to have some thing ready. I would try and explain the some what not so common ingredient for those who are not familiar with local Nigerian spices.

INGREDIENT:

• Palm fruit (canned or fresh)

• Banga spice (These can be bought or you can make yours by grinding Ataiko and Irugeje in a drill mill)

• Beletete (bitter leaf or scent leaf can also be used)

• Oburnubebe stick (optional)

• Fish (Mostly fresh catfish is used but any other fresh fish can be used)

• Beef (This is what we call assorted in Nigeria, It includes shaki, liver, floater, kidney, cow leg and so on)

• Shrimps (mostly fresh)

• Smoked fish

• Periwinkle (optional)

• Maggi (seasoning cubes)

• Salt

• Onion

• Water

while these might seem a bit much, you would come to know that it is all worth it when you are done.

How to Cook the Banga Soup

Firstly we need to season the beef (assorted beef) and dried fish by boiling. So get them in a pot add some water no too much but enough to boil it to tender add salt, water, onion and maggi (seasoning) cubes.

So if you are making use of the fresh palm fruit then you would have to pound it with mortar and pistol to seperate the fruit shell from the nut. What is needed hear is the shell and not the nut, so we wash this in a way that seperate the shell from the nut. After this process is complete we pour the residue of liquid washed from the palm fruit into a pan(pot), boil for about 20 t 3o minutues.while it boils you are advice not to cover it with so it does boil over and also to reduce the chances of this happening you could also but a wooden spoon it.

You would notice now at this point that the palm fruit extract bubbles up and oil starts floating above it and it starts to thicken. Now you can add your periwinkle and beef and cook for another 1o minutes.

Now add the Banga soup spice and Oburunbebe stick and leave to boil for another 10 minutes. This Banga spice gives the soup a very rich aroma like you can almost taste it in the air.

Add salt and seasoning cube to your taste. Stir in between to avoid soup sticking to the bottom of the pan.

So once we are satisfied with the result we can move on to adding the fresh cat fish, beletete or bitter leaf. Leave this to boil for another 10 minutes. This shouldn't be stirred at this stage so as not to scatter the fish but if need be you would have to be really careful or you could twirl the pan a bit.

Your Banga soup is ready! It can be served with any swallow of your choice like Eba, pounded yam, starch, fufu and so on.