HOW TO MAKE OR PREPARE NIGERIAN BANGA SOUP

Banga soup is a local dish that is popular and mainly eaten by the Niger Delta People of Nigeria. The main ingredient used in making this soup is palm nuts, along with assorted meat, dried fish, stock fish etc., which is gotten from the Palm tree, from which red oil or palm oil is gotten from. It is delicious and highly nutritious and might be difficult to cook the first time of trying. The Igbo variation of the soup is referred to as Ofe akwu.

INGREDIENT

• Beef
• Onion
• Cameroon Pepper
• Stock cubes
• Dry fish
• Crayfish, stock fish
• Habanero Pepper
• Salt

MAKING YOUR NIGERIAN BANGA SOUP

• Wash the palm kernel fruits and put them in a pot. Pour water into it a little above the fruits, then leave to boil for 30 minutes.
• After this pour the fruits into a mortar and pound not too hard to break the nuts, but hard enough to remove the skin from the fruits.
• Pour hot water over the nuts and squeeze and use a sieve to filter out the extract – do this repeatedly until there is no more red extract to sieve out.
• Season the beef with salt, onions, and seasoning cubes, add your stock fish so they can all boil together. Add water and begin to boil until the meat softens. Then separate the meat from the stock and set aside the stock.
• Pour the palm nut extract into a pot and let it boil until thickens to know it is ready when the red oil rises to the top.
• When this happens, pour in the meat, and meat stock. Add your dry fish and crayfish, and pepper into the pot.
• Add your salt and stock cubes and leave to boil, and cook for 20-30 minutes.

Banga soup is a native delight mostly eaten with starch or eba, rice, and yam. Banga soup, however is not the only traditional soup you should try you can also make soups and dishes like  Ogbono soup, Banga soup, Bitterleaf soup, Edikang Ikong Soup, Nsala Soup (Ofe Nsala), Afang Soup, Efo Riro, Pounded yam, and Semo.