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.

Ewa Agoyin

"Ewa" is the local name for black eyed beans. "Agoyin" I believe is used to describe a set of people  who hails from Togo. So I suppose this was how the name Ewa Agoyin was coined, so needless to say this recipe is originally from Togo and was adapted by Nigerians. Well, Nigerians seem to do this a lot, but the good thing is whatever they touch becomes gold (you know just they way Nigerians did Jollof)

Ewa Agoyin is a popular "kinda of street food". Although you can say this is simply mashed beans served with some sauce. But it is more than just beans and some sauce, it is a special kind of signature sauce.  And the way the beans was cooked as well, oh dear! You really have to taste it to get it. This food brings back memories of my days in  Lagos. It was part of Ahmodu's (that was our gate man at the time) job to spot the Agoyin seller when she hawks past in the morning, and me constantly asking from the window "she neva come" meaning is she here yet?.

Unfortunately, one never thought to ever ask them for the recipe at the time, so now living in far away land where its hard to find 'Ewa Aganyin' I have made several attempts to cook this at home. I have tried the sauce using only dried ground pepper and onions, this one i have used soaked dried pepper with onions. I honestly would not say it tastes exactly like that woman's own but it is close. So here we go, this how I cook Ewa Aganyin at home. 

Ingredients

For the Beans:

Black-Eyed Beans 

For the Sauce:

Palm-Oil

Dried Pepper

Scotch-bonnet (Rodo)

Onions

Ground Cray-Fish

Salt

Seasoning

For the beans, just cook until very soft and mushy, you can use a wooden spoon or a food processor to complete this process. How mushy it is, is up to your preference. But it usually very mushy more than the one in the pix.

For the stew:

I soaked the peppers overnight, and blend with some onions and scotch-bonnet

In a pot pour in a generous amount of palm oil, once hot pour in sliced onions and fry. Fry until almost burnt

Pour in the roughly blended pepper

Don't throw away the pepper seeds, I drained and used in the sauce

Keep frying whilst constantly stirring to avoid burning the colour will change from the reddish pepper colour to like a dark brown

Finally, add a little ground crayfish, salt and seasoning to taste.

Serving suggestion with fried plantain wrapped around it, you can enjoy with fresh Agege Bread, some boiled yam or on its on with gari. Yum!!

Gbegiri

                                       Gbegiri!!!

                             

Gbegiri and Ewedu are like synonyms, you can't mention gbegiri with mentioning Ewedu. Gbegiri is simply soup made from "Beans" whilst Ewedu is soup made from "Cochorus leaves" also known as "Jute leaves". Getting too technical right?

Some people are of the opinion that this soup is very difficult to cook and you absolutely must of done something out of the ordinary to deserve the special treat of "Gbegiri". Well, I saw my grandma cooked this soup so many times growing up, and she cooked it with so much ease and speed. I made a mental note of how she cooks hers and compare her recipe to other I have seen and read. Then I realise how she managed to cook it with such speed and I discovered she cut out some of the steps I have seen and read in other recipes. So, the reason why it was so easy for my grandma was that she cut out all the unnecessary steps.

She always cooked it plain, that is it was just the "Gbegiri" without including any meat, chicken or fish added. I have always cooked it as such, as I find out that adding anything to it changes that taste (my grandma's gbfegiri's taste). Come to think about it, being a soup eaten mostly by the "Yorubas" there was no need to cook it with meat, chicken or fish, as most "Yoruba" homes would already have a pot of stew at home (this was and still the norm). There would be  a pepper based stew at home at each point which would already have meat, chicken, fish or assorted. So we served the "Gbegiri with the stew" as you would any other meal like rice and any other swallow.

So, although some people are right to see cooking "Gbegiri" as an herculean task. However, I don't think it has to be.

This recipe is my grandma's recipe and I can say its probably the fastest recipe I have come across. I have tweeked this a bit by using modern day gadgets (food processor, nutri-bullet) to make it even faster to cook.

So shall I say grandma cheated or she was just been smart, well I'll leave you to decide. Lets begin

Ingredients

Beans (Washed and skin removed)
Palm Oil
Onions
Scotch Bonnet (Rodo)
Salt
Iru (Locust Beans)
Seasoning

 

After you have peeled all (well at least most) the skin off (I do have a video on how to use a blender or food processor to do this, but I have been unable to upload it, will try again later), place  the peeled in a pot and cook until very soft.

 

Pour in a blender or food processor ( I have used a Nutri-Bullet for this). At thus stage add the pepper and onions and blend together until its as smooth as possible.

 

Mama would then sieve at this stage using a cloth sieve, remember Mama never used blender or food processor, she would cook until very  soft and use "Ijabe"(small, short broom using for cooking).
So I skipped this bit, as i got a smooth enough paste.

Pour the smooth paste back in the cooking pot, add the palm oil.
Add Iru, salt and seasoning (I always use Knorr)
And some ground Crayfish (optional)

    

 

    

Leave to simmer till the oil is well incorporated, taste add add salt as required. 

And that is it my people. Gbegiri without "much ado" Serve and enjoy with "Amala & Ewedu" or with Tuwo (Rice flour)

Choose one, Option 1 "Abula" which is "Ewedu & Gbegiri" combo with Amala

Option 2 "Gbegiri with Tuwo"