Pepper soup.

Oh my God. It has been way too long and I have neglected my blogger duties. I apologize. Lol.

OK so. PEPPER SOUP. This is basically like any other soup there is. But what makes it special to me is that it is a traditional Nigerian dish. And what makes it even more special is the amount of traditional spices used. Given the name “pepper soup” it’s no surprise that it’s spicy.

It’s also called assorted meat soup because one can use different types of meat like, beef, fish, lamb meat, goat meat. In the picture above I have used smoked goat meat, hooves, and bones. Which are highly nutritious because of the bone marrow. Another thing which is required and is an absolute necessity is using tripe,or as Nigerians call it “towel”. It has a very chewy textur.

What you would need is

1kg Chicken or Cow Foot or Assorted Beef

4 seeds nutmeg

Chilli Pepper (to taste)

2 teaspoons crushed Dry Uziza(optional)

2 medium onions

Salt (to taste)

3 stock cubes

1 teaspoon of Thyme (for chicken pepper soup)

You woukd have to blend the Uziza seeds. I’ll put up pictures showing the things required.

If preparing Chicken pepper Soup, it is preferable to use whole chicken instead of drumsticks. The different parts of the chicken will bring variety to the pepper soup. So wash and cut up the whole chicken and set aside.
If you want to prepare Assorted Beef Pepper Soup then you should buy different parts of beef – best cut, offal (shaki, round-about, liver and kidney). Wash the offal thoroughly especially the round-about which should be turned inside out during the washing. Cut these into medium pieces, just big enough to be chewed in one go.
For Cow Foot Pepper Soup, just wash and cut the cow foot into medium pieces. In this case also, make the pieces just big enough that it can be chewed in one go.
To make the ehu seeds. Just put it in a frying pan and when it’s ready you can tell by the smell
You will also need cumin powder, fennel seeds

Chop the onions into small pieces and start boiling the assorted meat, then add the onions, fennel seeds, coriander and other spices. Make sure that they all boil together with a suffeceint amount of water for a long time so that the meat can absorb all the ingredients. Let it boil for about 30 minutes while constantly checking the water levels. Then your pepper soup is ready.

In our house whenever we eat pepper soup we always gave a side of boiled UNRIPE plantain. We never use ripe plantain because it’s sweet and clashes with the flavor of the pepper soup.