NIGERIAN GROUNDNUT (PEANUT) SOUP COOKED WITH SCANTY UGU VEGETABLE

Groundnut soup has many delicious methods of cooking. I have tried and they all taste really good. Can be roasted before grinding or ground raw. A little groundnut gives so much. When cooking with
groundnut for the first time, measure with caution as even one cup of groundnut can give so much soup compared to egusi. Groundnut soup can be cooked with different vegetables; afang, ugu; hot leaf or just plain like Nigerian white soup.
Goes well with all kind of swallow (fufu) or boiled rice.

NIGERIAN GROUNDNUT SOUP WITH UGU VEGETABLE

NIGERIAN GROUNDNUT SOUP WITH UGU VEGETABLE

Nigerian groundnut soup with warm garri.
Groundnut soup is mostly cooked by the Northerners and some parts of Southern Nigeria. It is a delicacy to those who know it. Some people cook this soup with slices of dried unripe paw paw. This unripe paw paw acts like kpomo in the soup.

It can be made thick or light depending on how one wants it, and
the quantity of water or vegetables added. Some great lovers of groundnut cook this without vegetables. The groundnut can be roasted a little or just ground raw and fresh. A small portion of Locust beans (dadawa) can also be added if you like it's flavor.


This is the kind of soup that can make you eat more eba than planned, so, if you are a weight watcher, I beg you to eat only one of those foo foos in the picture. Without self control, the yummy soup can make you clear all three before realizing what you just did.
This soup can be served with any type of foo foo, semo, starch, not too soft amala, pounded yam etc.
Anyone who can cook the miyan taushe soup sent in by Deborah Bala two days back, should be able to cook this soup. There is no much difference.

It is best warmed again at night or stored in a freezer because, just like melon soup, it can go sour easily.
A trial will make you a fan of this soup, I promise.

Some ingredients like ugu vegetable,groundnut. salt, cow skin, crayfish, stock fish, smoked fish, seasoning, onion, pepper and periwinkle


boiling washed beef with salt and chopped onion


adding washed stock fish to soup


roasting peanuts for 4 minutes before grinding


grinding peanuts manually


grinding crayfish with groundnut


adding kpomo and palm oil to soup


adding just a scoop of oil to soup


Adding scrubbed and washed smoked fish after palm oil boils and cooks


adding pepper. pepper and kpomo can be added while boiling beef or earlier


soup boils well before adding groundnut


adding ground peanuts and crayfish to boiling soup


adding washed periwinkle to soup


Finally adding ugu vegetables to cooked soup


stir for just 3-5 minutes and remove from heat


vegetable groundnut soup being served with hot and fluffy eba.


cooked soup being dished out


rotten ugu, the reason for cooking light vegetable groundnut soup. I didn't preserve this ugu properly, by the time I brought it out to chop, almost every had gone bad. I had to cook with the few good ones. Would have loved to add more, but sha, the soup still tastes very delicious.


a yummy serving of groundnut soup with soft yellow garri

Periwinkle this days is so salty, be careful with salt before adding periwinkles. If you add salt before periwinkles, your pot of soup may turn out very salty.


The reason I cooked this light vegetable groundnut soup is because the ugu I kept could not survive Abuja heat. There was no space in the fridge and I had to keep vegetables in a cellophane bag. There was no time to cook the soup earlier as planned. After two days, almost everything in the bag got bad. I had to pick a few good leaves and manage to cook the soup with them.


When next I cook groundnut soup, it's going to be with thick vegetables just like my edikang ikong soup. I hope "Anon" won't complain that I'm posting the same thing every day. It's actually not the same when you look at the colour of the dish and ingredients. One different ingredient is enough to change the name of a dish.
Enjoy your lunch!

Live Off the Land : Survive With Edible Weeds

Whenever I go out I always look for edible weeds which grow naturally in the open land near water sources, under some trees like coconut and Banana and in the wild. Most of these edible weeds are
neglected and forgotten as our life style has changed and are being destroyed in the name of development.

Here I have gathered few edible weeds from our home garden and also from surrounding areas, which we used as green vegetables with lunch. Most of these weeds are also used by our ancestors as medicine to cure various ailments naturally. In case you are stranded in the wild, you can look for these kind of edible weeds for your survival.

Step 1: Indian Pennywort or Asiatic Pennywort





Indian Pennywort or Asiatic Pennywort grows in abundance in wetlands. Commonly known as Centella asiatica or simply centella is also a medicinal herb. You can easily recognise this plant by its kidney shaped leaves. They spread along the ground in wetlands.

This plant is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and wetland regions of the Southeastern US.

Step 2: Ceylon spinach or Surinam Purslane






Talinum fruticosum, also known by different names as Ceylon spinach, Surinam Purslane, Philippine spinach and Florida spinach, grows everywhere along river banks, paddy fields and wet lands. This plant can be easily identified with its fleshy leafs which look like spinach with small pink flowers.

Also known as Waterleaf plant, it is native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. It grows in many parts of Asia also and used as a leafy vegetable.

Step 3: Green Amaranth






It is an edible weed growing everywhere. There are so many different species of these weed and most of them are edible.

You can find this weed in almost all the places.

Step 4: Black Nightshade or Green Nightshade






Solanum nigrum also known as Black Nightshade or Green Nightshade is commonly found in many wooded areas. The plant has tiny white flowers. The small berries are purple black in color.

Step 5: Asiatic Dayflower





Commelina communis, commonly known as Asiatic Dayflower is a weed with a beautiful looking tiny blue flowers. These flowers lost for a day only, so the name Dayflower.

As per wikipedia, the plant's native distribution includes East Asia and Southeast Asia. The species has been introduced to much of Europe and eastern North America. It is also present in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada, and in most of the eastern and central American states from Massachusetts and New York in the northeast, west to Minnesota and south through the Great Plains to Texas and east to extreme northern Florida in the United States.

Step 6: Asthma Plant






Euphorbia hirta, also known as Asthma Plant, grows in open grasslands, roadsides and river banks. If you break the stem, you will a find a white latex seeping out from the stem. The leaves are elliptical with flowers at each leaf node.

It is native to Asian countries and used in Ayurvedic Medicine in India.

Step 7: Thoodhuvalai, Solanum trilobatum






This plant grows in the wild and is full of thorns. Even the leaves have thorns on the underside. It is also a medicinal plant used widely in Ayurvedic medicine. While collecting the leaves, remove the thorns from the leaves before using it for cooking.

it is native to Asian countries

Step 8: Malabar Spinach






Basella alba, also known as Malabar Spinach, Climbing Spinach and Red Vine Spinach. It is a creeper with red stem.

As per wikipedia, this plant grows in tropical Asia, Africa,Brazil, Belize, Colombia, the West Indies, Fiji and French Polynesia

Step 9: Wash, Chop and Cook








I have gathered enough greens, washed them in clean water to remove any soil particles and then lightly chopped them into pieces. The chopped greens were boiled with little salt till the raw smell disappeared. A little tempering with oil, onions and red chillies makes the dish very tasty.

There are so many edible weeds growing in the wild. These weeds may differ from region to region. If you are not sure of which one is edible, seek advice from local people. These weeds will help us survive in case we are stranded in the wild.