This is one of my favorite African soups just like egusi and of course pepper soup. This one I have to eat sparingly due to its extremely high potassium content. I am showing you on how I made this.
The protiens of choice are 1 kilo or 1 lb of tripe that has been cleaned very well. After taking the membrane off that is on the smooth part of the tripe itself by using a knife to remove the excess fat. Cut the tripe in to bite size pieces. Brown tripe is recomended. I never get the white one. Place the tripe in to a large bowl, add 1 drop of dish soap and fill the bowl full of water to start cleaning the tripe. Under cold running water making sure that every trace of the detergent is out of it. Add 1 tbs of vinegar and rinse 5 times more then drain and set aside in a pressure cooker if you want to use tripe. For tripe add 1 liter or 1 quart of water and pressure cook for 30 minutes after the safety button pops up.
Turn heat off and let the pressure escape watching the pressure valve lower. Open pressure cooker and add 3 more cups of water and bring to high heat again and close the pressure cooker once more watch the safety button pop up and cook for another 30 minutes.
If you are wanting to use 1 kilo or 1 lb of beef, chicken, goat ,lamb, veal, turkey or smoked turkey and place in a pressure cooker. If you are using these either with or without tripe cook for 30 minutes after the safety valve pops up. Turn heat off and let pressure escape. You can add these to the pot with tripe if you want with the stockfish and 1 piece of dried smoked fish. If you want to use smoked fish omit the smoked turkey because it can get pretty salty. Three pieces stockfish, any type of fish that is fresh frozen or canned titus sardings or saury or sardines or mackeral in tomato sauce is fine too and any type of shell fish.
I had some fish I had thawed out and I had fried these in 1 oz of peanut oil and set this aside. You can use the stock from the meat too but however since I used fish I used 3 cups of water instead because this is how I wanted my soup. I added stockfish and dried smoked fish and cooked it for 20 minutes. I drained it because the dried smoked fish is very salty. I returned the fish to the pot and I got ready to finish making this soup.
I added to a blender 1/4 of water for ease of blending, either 1 scotch bonnet or habenero, 1 onion or shallot, 1 red bell pepper deseeded, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 tomato chopped. I blended these then added 1 oz of red palm oil and made a fried pepper sauce base on high heat. I turned it down to low heat and added some grated nutmeg or ehru. I grate nutmeg on a mini grater. I added 1 pinch of uziza seeds to my mortar and pestle and ground them in to a coarse powder.
I added 3 handfuls of raw peanuts and roasted them. I added 1/4 cup of water again for ease of blending and added the freshly roasted peanuts and ground them almost in to a paste.I added this to the pot and the rest of the ingredients that follows are: 1 bullion cube, 3 dashes of maggi or knorr aroma, 4 dried smoked shrimp, 1 pinch each of crayfish, boni bonga fish powder,thyme, bitterleaf, basil, ugu, dawadawa, uziza leaves and any precooked protien of choice. This time it is fish which I added to the peanut mixture and let it cook for 10 more minutes.
It is eaten with gari or semolina fufu.
Old world market here in Chicago now has Ehru also known as African or calabash nutmeg. Tell them it is used for making pepper soup.
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