Bitter Leaf Soup – From birth, I’ve always hated this soup properly because of the name and you know as a child, no one loves anything bitter but the sight and aroma were always captivating during preparation. I made up my mind to at least taste the soup after one of the longer throats.
Thanks be to God that my longer throat never failed me, and I’ve been eating it since that day. What a great testimony for a soup. The leaves are never used like that because if it’s a bitter taste and if your soup is bitter, you are termed a bad chef. They are washed several times like clothes to remove the bitter taste in form of a foam until the water is flawless and the leaves have no taste of bitterness.
Ingredients used for Making Bitter Leaf Soup
This is a local soup and as well must have local ingredients to achieve a nice meal. They are:
- Squeezed bitter leaf – 3 handfuls
- Red oil- 2 large cooking spoons
- Protein- Assorted beef(shaki), assorted fish(Dry fish), chicken parts
- Uziza and Efure (traditional seasoning) all pounded
- Seasoning- Cubes and salt
- Grinded pepper and crayfish
- Grinded Achi
Preparation: How to Prepare Bitter Leaf Soup
Please, I’ll like to place an emphasis on the bitter leaf so that no one acts like I did the first time I was about squeezing the leaf. The leaves must not be sliced before washing, it makes the leaf too small to even wash so I’ll prefer that you sundry it for 5 minutes before squeezing for proper washing and for a longer size of leaf.
- Wash the cuts of bitter leaf in clean water by scrubbing like clothes. Make sure there is no trace of bitterness. Wash it, sieve out the water, and wash again with a little clean water until the bitterness is out.
- In an empty pot, boil your shake with the chicken with cubes, water, and salt and leave to become tender for about 15 minutes. The harder proteins are boiled before the softer ones.
- You can add your dry fish to steam.
- In the pot containing the boiled protein and it’s stock, add your grinded pepper and crayfish, pounded Efure, and uziza seed. Add your red oil and allow to steam. Stir properly and add your achi in bits while stirring.
- Add your squeezed bitter leaf into the pot and cover so as to change the taste of the raw leaf as well as your dissolve the achi.
- You can add water to increase the quantity of the soup if you want.
- Add your cubes and salt to improve taste.
Serve the Bitter Leaf Soup hot with garri (Eba), pounded yam, wheat, Amala, Tuwo or semovita.
