Pepper soup is such a delicious soup and apart from its yummy taste, it is also very easy to cook. It can be cooked with any meat or fresh of choice. As for fish, it can be cooked with catfish which is the most popular one known as point and kill, it can also be cooked with fresh fish or croaker fish. And as for meat, it can be cooked with goat meat (the most popular for meat) cow meat, cow tail, goat head (Isi-ewu) or assorted meat (shaki, ponmo, intestine) or even chicken and turkey. So it is a soup that can be cooked according to your taste bud.
In Nigeria, this soup is very popular at relaxation centres, People usually go to exclusive bars or restaurants to eat the Pepper Soup. This is because this Nigerian soup recipe is believed to be prepared with ‘secret’ ingredients that only the restaurant Madams know about. The Pepper Soup ingredient which gives this recipe its unique aroma and taste is truly the best-kept secret.
Recipe for the pepper soup
- 1kg Chicken or Cow Foot or Assorted Beef
- 4 seeds Ehu or Ariwo or Calabash Nutmeg
- Grounded Pepper (to taste)
- 2 teaspoons crushed Dry Uziza (optional)
- 2 medium onions
- Salt (to taste)
- stock cubes
- 1 teaspoon of Thyme (for chicken pepper soup)
Preparation
Depending on what you want to use, here are the methods to go about it.
- If preparing Chicken pepper Soup, it is preferable to use a full chicken instead of drumsticks. The different parts of the chicken will bring variety to the pepper soup. So wash and cut up the whole chicken and set aside.
- If you want to prepare Assorted Beef Pepper Soup then you should buy different parts of beef – best cut, offal (shaki, round-about, liver and kidney). Wash the offal thoroughly especially the round-about which should be turned inside out during the washing. Cut these into medium pieces, just big enough to be chewed in one go.
- For Cow Foot Pepper Soup, just wash and cut the cow foot into medium pieces. In this case, make the pieces just big enough that it can be chewed in one go.
- Now it is time to prepare the ‘secret’ ingredient. Using an old frying pan, roast the Ehu seeds (stirring constantly) till you can smell it. Don’t worry you will know when it is OK to take it off because it has a distinctive aroma. Another way to know that it is OK is to take one of the seeds and try to remove the outer membrane. If the membrane comes off easily, then the Ehu is done.
- Peel off the membrane from all the Ehu seeds and grind with a dry mill.
- Cut the onions into tiny pieces.
- Rub the dry uziza with your fingers to break them into tiny pieces.
Directions
- This cooking direction describes Chicken Pepper Soup. To prepare Goat Meat Pepper Soup, Cow Foot Pepper Soup or Assorted Beef Pepper Soup just substitute chicken with cow foot or beef and offal respectively.
- Place the pieces of chicken in a pot and pour enough water to cover the contents of the pot. Add the stock cubes, thyme and onions and cook till done.
Note: When cooking Assorted Beef Pepper Soup, you should cook the shaki for sometime before adding the other beef parts. Shaki is tough and will take longer to cook than the other beef parts.
Cow foot is a tough part of meat so when cooking Cow Foot Pepper Soup, you should use a pressure cooker if you have one. This will save you some gas or electricity. - By now, you will notice that some of the water has dried. Add more water to bring it to the level of the contents of the pot.
- Add the ground Ehu, dry uziza, chilli pepper and salt to taste. Ehu has some spicy taste so you should add chilli pepper with care. Even though it is called pepper soup, you still want to be able to taste and enjoy the recipe itself. Too much chilli pepper will ruin it for you.
- Cover the pot and leave to boil for 5 minutes and the pepper soup is ready.
Pepper Soup should always be served hot. It can be eaten alone with a chilled drink accompanying it by the side. You can also eat it with Agidi(Eko), White Rice or Boiled Yam, boiled Plantain, Boiled sweet potatoes, Boiled Spaghetti
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