Noodle Fish Pepper Soup

                                                      Noodle Fish Pepper Soup

Okay, so they other day I was under the weather. I had blocked nose and my throat was sore. I immediately knew I was coming up with something and I needed to act fast. I needed something to give me life, something natural. I needed to get some ginger, garlic, nutmeg and all their cousins in my system fast.  I needed paper soup, so I cooked this "Noodle Fish Pepper Soup" to her fight the symptoms.

I used Tilapia fish but you can use any fish of your choice. I would have used our very own "Indomie" noodles but I did not have any at home so I used another brand. I made my own pepper soup spices but you can buy ready made ones form any african shop. You can also use spaghetti or rice for this, I also have a recipe for yam pepper soup, which I hope to post at some point.  Ok lets start.

Ingredients
1 whole Tilapia (gutted & cleaned)
Pepper soup spices
1 Scotch Bonnet
3 cloves Garlic
Thumb size Garlic
Salt
Fish Sauce (Optional)
Oyster sauce (Optional)
Seasoning
1/2 Pack of Noodles (quantity can be varied)

Start by chopping the garlic, ginger and scotch bonnet, you can  also run this in a food processor.

In a pot put a tablespoon of vegetable oil (optional)

Stir fry your chopped ginger garlic and scotch bonnet

Pour some water in the pot (I had some stock at home so I used it)

Add 2tablespoon of fish sauce

Add 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce

Add the noodles

Add 2 teaspoons the pepper soup spice mix and add the fish.

Cover to simmer, after a few minutes turn the fish, to allow both sides cook properly

Serve and enjoy

So here you have it "Noodle Fish Pepper Soup"

And yes it helped clear my nose and throat!

Kiwi-Nana

                                                          Spicy Kiwi-Banana
                 

This is a blend of mainly kiwi fruit and banana with a few other ingredients. So I decided to call this "Kiwi-Nana" smoothie. Lets take a quick look at the benefits of the main ingredients.

Kiwi contains a lots of nutrients and very low in calories. A few of its many benefits are kiwi helps with getting a beautiful skin, study shows that Kiwi affects the quality of sleep in adults with sleeping problems and with its high content of vitamin C it is proven to boost immune system.

Banana is one of the most popular fruit in the world, and has been traced by some scientist to the garden of Eden. There are numerous benefits of banana,  banana is high in fiber, potassium, vitamin C and B6.  As a result it supports a healthy heart, its known to help with asthma, diabetes and helps in preserving memory and boost moods.

Ingredients

Kiwi
Banana
Lime
Ginger
Fresh Mint leaves
Honey

Put banana, kiwi, fresh mint leaves, ginger and the juice of lime in a smoothie maker (or blender) and blend until smooth.

Here I have used 2 bananas, 3 kiwi's, 2 thumb size ginger, some fresh mint leaves and the juice of half lime.

Best served Chilled

Boli & Epa (Roasted Plantain & Groundnut

             Boli & Epa

Boli and Epa is one of Nigeria's many street food. Boli is roasted plantain whilst Epa is simply groundnuts/roasted peanuts and the match of these two is definitely one made in heaven. 

I remember growing up I had a friend and neighbour, that went to the same high school as I did and would usually do the journey home together. My friend introduced me to "Boli & Epa",she liked Boli so much that she would rather spend her transport fare on buying Boli and leg it (walk) home or better still beg that we lap each other(carrying each other and pay for one seat instead of two) and I would get half of her Boli in return. This was how got introduced to Boli, my friends Dad also loved Boli, she bought it for him anytime she's done something wrong or simply wants him to request something from him. This was how I was introduced to Boli, although I won't say I have been a loyal fan of Boli.

Boli is not on my top list of 'go to snacks' but I had this nostalgic feeling and decided to give Boli a chance. So here is my first attempt at making Boli in an oven.

Ingredients

Plantain (not banana)

Water

Salt

Groundnuts/ Roasted salted Peanuts

 

Peel the plantain (I think mine's a tad too ripe)

 

Put some salt i water and mix

Brush the Plantain with the salted water

Place on the rack and grill in an oven at about 150 F  for about 6-8 mins on each side.

Turn to the other side making sure both side are cooked
  

 

Although, this is not the best Boli I have seen or eaten but I don't think its really bad for a first try either. If you have any tips for me on getting the perfect Boli please drop a comment.

PS: Boli can also be enjoyed with fresh palm oil (all thanks to my friend)

Enjoy.

Ewedu

Ewedu is a popular soup mostly eaten by the yoruba tribe in Nigerian, if you have any friends or family that comes from Oyo or Ibadan (my grandma was from Ibadan), or any ties with these 2 cities you would have most likely tasted this soup before. This was certainly my grandma's favourite soup and it just had to be at home. And of course it usually goes down with Amala (oh my days). 

I have never and I mean never or let me say I'm yet to taste any ewedu taste as good as my grandma's ewedu. I wish it was possible for her to have cooked a lifetime worth of ewedu for me before passing on (God rest her soul). If you could cook ewedu to my grandma's satisfaction mehn! you are a star, I gave up trying. Oh, how I wish I could taste Mama's (as we fondly called her, or spell it out M-A-M-A when we wanted to gossip about her in her pressence) ewedu one more time. I have since accepted that I will never be able to taste ewedu cooked by Mama again but also I've also determined to keep trying to get my ewedu games up to Mama's level. Ok so lets give it another try, shall we?

Ingredients

Ewedu leaves (corchorus olitorius/Jute)
Potash (A small sized stone or 1/2 tsp if powdered)
1 cup of water
Ijabe (Ewedu Broom) or a blender
Salt to taste
1 cube of seasoning
Egusi
2-3 teaspoons of ground crayfish

A few pieces of whole Crayfish
2 tablespoon of Egusi (ground melon seeds)

Preparation

You can either buy fresh ewedu leaves this means that you have to pick the leaves from the stem, as you only need the leaves. Or you can buy the frozen leaves from the Asian/ African grocery shop, this would have have been picked. I have used the fresh one and I've picked and washed the leaves.

Place the water in a pot, add a small stone or 1/2 tsp of potash and bring water to boil.

Pour in the washed weed leaves and leave to continue boiling in the water.

Check to see if the leaves have soften once the are soft enough, pour this in the blender (or you can use what we call Ijabe (this is like a small short broom) to manually chop the leaves). 

Otherwise, pour in a blender  and use the pulse button "P" a couple of times to chop the leaves, you don't want this all smooth.

Pour the soup back in the pot and place back on heat, add the iru (locust beans)

Add some cray fish, it better to use the ground crayfish.
Add 2 tablespoon of grounded egusi (grounded melon seeds, this is optional) you can have it plain if you prefer.

Add salt and seasoning cube to taste.

Please note that you need to be fast as possible so the the soup still maintains its greens and still drawy. The beauty of ewedu is in its drawiness i.e its sliminess (if there's any word as such)  

Ewedu is usually paired with its twin sister "Gbegiri" and eaten along with Amala

It was once said that if yoruba people were to have their own flag it will be in the colours of these 2 soup, "Ewedu & Gbegiri"

 Ewedu is a very rich source of folic acid, my grandma used to make me just eat or lets say drink this soup on its own being anaemic. In recent times, the health benefits of ewedu has come to light, it has been known to include vitamins such Vitamin A, B & C and high in fibre.