Cat Fish Peppersoup

Catfish pepper soup is one of Nigerian’s most popular evening recipes. I have been putting this away for a very long time because of the complexity of the recipe. I had planned to make this recipe even before the launch of the “Easy guide to delicious Nigerian Foods”, one of the best products ever
made in the Nigerian Kitchen.

Catfish pepper soup (point and kill) is the most popular fish pepper soup in Nigeria. We also have cow tail peppersoup, goat meat pepper soup and several others Recipes in Nigeria.

I like Nigerian foods to the point that I find it difficult to cope in a foreign environments. Well, I think this is justifiable, I have been making Nigerian foods right from my eleventh birthday. I think the first food I ever made was vegetable soup with cow liver, my dad insisted and I had no option but to obey.

Below is the image of catfish pepper soup, the popular point and kill peppersoup that is served in major restaurants and bars in Nigeria. You will find the video for this recipe at the bottom of this page. I used most of the necessary ingredients, except a very popular ingredient that was hard to find at the time of making this delicious dessert – Utazi.

Utazi is a slightly bitter leaf that is used in making a few Nigerian foods. I used these ingredients while making Nkwobi, pepper soup and African salad. Have you seen my page on how to make African salad (Abacha), it is one of the most popular and the easiest to make Igbo recipe.

So here are the ingredients for making point and kill (cat fish) peppersoup, you will end up with a very delicious recipe if you use the ingredients as listed below and also learn to incorporate them the exact way it was done in the video below. I will try my best to explain how to make cat fish peppersoup in this article too.

I used just a medium sized catfish while making the video below, so this is the exact size of ingredients that I used. You can choose to increase or decrease depending on the number of persons you are looking to feed and the number/size of the cat fish you are preparing .

This would serve 4 to 5 people.

1 medium sized catfish – 1.2KG
One big bulb of onions
Scent leaves (a handful)
Utazi leaves (very little)
1 maggi cube (spices)
Lion peppersoup spices
Kitchen glory (beef seasoning) (a sachet)
Half cup of ground crayfish
fresh pepper
salt to taste.

It is better to use a smaller pot while making peppersoup so that all the ingredients would easily soak with the fish or meat, and it wouldn’t take lots of water to get the fish submerged in water. Watch the video for catfish pepper soup below to get a view of what I am talking about.
Here is How to make point and kill peppersoup in Nigeria.

We start by washing the fishes thoroughly, most people fail to do this properly. Normally, the fish is cut in the market by the seller to serve-able sizes so just transfer into a bowl and soak with hot water at 80 – 90 degree Celsius, very boiled water will end up peeling the skin of the fish.

Wash to remove the slimy outer layer completely.

Prepare all the necessary ingredients, I had to pound the fresh red pepper and half cup of crayfish together with a mortar and pestle. Also slice the utazi leaves, Uziza, onions and scent leaves and set aside in a bowl.

Transfer the washed cat fish into the cooking pot, like I advised above, it is better to use a small pot where the fish parts are very close to each other, this will allow the proper incorporation of the ingredients and help you make a very delicious point and kill peppersoup.

I think we are done with the hard part, fishes take about ten to fifteen minutes to cook, that is just the cat fish. Electric fish and a few other fish found in Nigeria take just about five minutes to prepare.

Once you have transferred into a pot, start cooking. Allow to boil before adding all the ingredients. Before that, make sure you add enough water at least until the fish parts are completely submerged in water. Then start with salt, followed by a cube of maggi, crayfish plus pepper, you can add the leaves now or later.

Make sure the ingredients are not suspended at the top.

Cook for three to five minutes then add the onions and all the leaves, I also added another favorite spice (kitchen glory) and the lion peppersoup spice, this spices are available in Nigeria and maybe a few other countries of the world.

There are basic ingredients for making cat fish (point and kill) peppersoup, however, you are free to spice up with flavors and spices of choice.