Do you know this weary feeling you get after cooking for your entire neighbourhood and you become unable to eat the delicious food you made? Recently, it was my cousin’s birthday and I spent approximately 10hours in the kitchen on that day. Myself, his mom which is my aunt and my sister went from frying a carton of fish to preparing Jollof Rice twice and making Nigerian pepper soup.
The pepper soup was not part of the initial plan. Neither was it our plan to prepare Jollof rice twice. This is what happened. Earlier that day, our domestic worker’s children came to deliver an errand and while they were leaving, MJ (my aunt) told them to come back later in the evening, with a dish for rice.
Of course, we are talking about Nigerian jollof rice which every Nigerian loves. So, in the evening, the children came back with a dish. Not just any dish, but one that was big enough to take three times what we had planned for their family. They came with a pot and my aunt became unsure of what quantity to serve them. Should she serve half the pot or just fill it up?
Well, she filled the pot, serving them the portion that could have sufficed for their family and ours. Since we had to partake of the birthday jollof, after serving the other families on the street, as well as my uncle and the two older children, we the ladies went on a second journey of making another Jollof rice so that we could eat.
In the process of doing that, my uncle was outside the building when a woman selling catfishes passed by. He beckoned on her and somehow got three nice catfishes for the family. Just like that, unplanned, Nigerian catfish pepper soup was added another dish to be prepared that evening.
The fresh fish pepper soup was prepared with the recipe which is described below and we prepared the jollof rice using a yummy jollof rice recipe that I will share in my next blog post. The Jollof was super nice and it was just as seen in the picture below.
By the time we were completely done cooking at about 9 pm, neither of us three women that had been in the kitchen all day could eat the Jollof. We cleared the kitchen, opted for the lighter and more refreshing pepper soup, enjoyed it and retired for the day.
The pepper soup cooked in a very short time, tasted spicy, sweet and was super refreshing. It was the food that actually saved the day and I call it the life-saving Nigerian pepper soup.
- 2 Catfish
- 1teaspoon Pepper soup seasoning
- 1Tablespoon Ground pepper
- 2 Stock cubes
- Onion
- garlic
- Ginger
- salt
- Get the catfishes, cut and clean properly, removing the fish gut and other parts that you consider unnecessary.
- Grate onions, garlic and ginger with the tiniest grater face.
- Slice some scent leaves and set aside.
- Among the properly washed fishes, select the parts you would like to use into a well-sized pot. In this recipe, I used 2 fish head cuts, 2 tail cuts and 4 middle cuts.
- Add 1 teaspoon pepper soup spice, 1 tablespoon ground pepper, grated ginger, garlic and onions, stock cube and salt.
- Add enough water to cover the fish and exceed it's level by about 3 inches or as much as you please.
- Cook on medium heat for 20minutes and then add the sliced scent leaves. Cover the pot and allow to cook further for 5minutes.
- Turn off cooker and serve hot.
The post Your Easy Guide to Preparing the Best Nigerian Pepper Soup appeared first on FoodieDame.
