My first encounter with Groundnut Soup was at a former place of work where my boss always ate white rice accompanied with plain groundnut soup and fish stew. The soup had a rich taste of groundnut which was a little spicy and made a great fit for the white rice. This plain groundnut soup is quite different from the Edo state groundnut soup known as Omisagwe. Over the years, I learned about Omisagwe and I fell in love with it because unlike the plain version, it serves better with solids like pounded yam.
plain groundnut soup and white rice Omisagwe
Groundnut soup is a West African soup popular among the Etsako people of Edo State, Nigeria. However, it has been incorporated into meals in other parts of Nigeria. It is also often regarded as peanut soup in English while its name varies from Maafe, tigadèguèna, or Domodah. The soup is said to have originated from the Mandinka and Bambara people of Mali where it is known as Tigadegena or Domodah.
Based on the cuisine, there are different methods of cooking groundnut soup. The recipe below describes how to cook groundnut soup with the addition of palm oil. This recipe makes a great serve with any solid such as pounded yam, plantain fufu, starch or garri.
The ingredients used for this groundnut soup include peeled roasted groundnut, yellow habanero, red bell pepper, tomatoes, crayfish, ehuru (local nutmeg), palm oil, goat meat, and assortments as well as stock and dried fish.
If you are familiar with koto or gbegiri soup, you might find that this groundnut soup tastes like it. However, groundnut soup is way richer in its content. This soup which can be made into a thick or thin paste is a fantastic source of plant-based protein, fiber, and numerous key nutrients and minerals.
Now, how do you cook groundnut soup?
Groundnut Soup
Equipment
- Blender
- Air fryer
Ingredients
- 2 cups Groundnut
- 2 tablespoon Crayfish
- Goat Meat
- Stockfish
- Dried fish
- 2 Yellow habanero
- 1 medium Red bell pepper
- 1 big Onion
- 1 medium Tomato
- 2 Ehuru
- 3 cooking spoon Palm oil
- Stock cubes to season meat
- Salt to taste
- Water
- Bitter leaf or any preferred vegetable used for local soups
Instructions
- To get ready for cooking, wash the meat, fish, peppers, tomatoes, ehuru, onions, and set aside.
- Boil meat to be used with adequate onion and seasoning. The meat stock will be used in blending the groundnut and in cooking the soup so, ensure that you have about 4 cups of water in the meat by the time it's done. If you will like to store some of the stock when it's ready, you can remove some and add more water to the boiling meat to increase the water content.
- While the meat cooks, fry the fresh groundnut for about 5- 10 minutes in an air fryer (or frying pan). After frying, allow the groundnuts to cool then peel off the brown skin and carefully pick out the bad ones from the ones to be blended. Alternatively, you can buy already roasted and peeled groundnut for use.
- In a dry mill, along with the ehuru, blend enough crayfish that would give 2 tablespoon powdered crayfish.
- Afterward, pour the roasted groundnut into a blender and blend to the finest possible grains you can achieve. Do not overwork the machine at this stage since you will still blend further.
- After the meat is cooked, take out a cup of the meat stock to be used for blending, add the cleaned fishes i.e the stockfish and/or dried fish to the pot of meat, season with salt as well as stock cube if necessary and leave to further cook till fish is as soft as desired.
- Turn out the milled groundnut into a bowl, set aside. Put the onion, habanero, pepper, tomatoes and about a cup of the meat stock into the blender and blend.
- Pour back the milled groundnut into the blended pepper and blend to a fine paste. While blending, in the case where your blender is unable to finely process the thick paste, add some more water to make the peanut paste thinner.
- Add 3 cooking spoon of palm oil to the cooking meat and fish. Allow to simmer and then, pour in the groundnut paste.
- Stir properly and allow to cook for about 10 minutes with you stirring at intervals because the soup is prone to burning.
- After about 5 minutes of adding the groundnut paste, add the bitter leaf or any other vegetable which you have prepared to use for the soup.
- Continue to cook and intermittently stir the soup until a thin film of oil is seen atop the soup.
- Serve with pounded yam prepared easily with a food processor.
Notes
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