Nigeria – Nsala Soup

by Verdzekov Bernard

Have you ever eating Nsala soup? Again, I bring to you the best of dishes around Africa. Imagine African is a very large continent with so many countries. In some of these countries are so many tribes and this tribes have meals you haven’t ever heard of, but if you eat the dish, you may love to leave in Africa. You can prepare your Nsala soup with cat fish or goat meat. You just need to process your goat meat well to avoid smells and for your fish you just to clean and remove the bile well and wash, but the cooking process and ingredients are maintained. Just your cooking time may vary. Follow procedure below;

Ingredients

• Cray fish
• Salt to taste
• Utazi leaves
• Uziza seeds  
• Maggi 
• Dried fish
• Vegetable oil
• Tomatoes  
• Pepper 
• Goat meat
• Yams  

Process

• Most people don’t like the taste for goat meat because the say it smells. But to be able to remove that scent, wash the meat perfectly with warm water. Rinse thoroughly with fresh cold water, then season with chopped ginger, onions and garlics then boil. Boiling should take about 35-40min for the meat to cook well. Make sure you boil the meat with maggi and salt to taste.
• Grind your crayfish.
• Wash your Utazi leaves with warm water, chop and keep aside.
• Using your five fingers, scatter the dry fish, wash and boil. Keep aside.
• Grind or blend your pepper.
• Grind your Uziza seeds
• Chop your onions and garlics. Blend your garlics and keep aside.
• Clean your yams, cut into halves and boil. This should take about 20min.
• Remove the yams, then using a mortar and pestle, pawn the yams until it is soft and smooth. 
• When your meat is ready, don’t remove. Add your pounded yams and stir gently.
• I know you thought the yams was an accompaniment, instead, the yams are used as a thickener for the soup. Stir so well until the yams dissolve well in the boiling meat.
• Add your boiled fished with some of the fish water and stir well. 
• In a small pot, put vegetable oil and heat up, fry your chopped tomatoes and onions, when translucent, add it into the main cooking and stir well. 5min
• After about 5-10min add your ground Uziza seeds and leave it to boil well. 
• Open pot, add cray fish and Utazi leaves, add salt to taste and maggi and close pot for 15min more. 
• It depends on you how you want your soup to be. If you want it watery, add water, but make sure it is regulated. If you want it thick, act vice versa. 
• After 15min your Nsala soup is ready.
• Serve with ripe plantains.

Enjoy…