Cook with Suppy (Banga soup)
Today’s recipe with Suppy is the Banga soup! This soup is native to the Niger Delta and South Eastern parts of the country. It is commonly eaten with ‘fufu’ recipes like pounded yam, garri, semolina. It can also be paired with boiled white rice. Without further ado, let’s dive straight into the recipe!
Ingredients
1kg palm fruits (alternative: 800g tinned palm fruit concentrate), beef (you can use fresh fish also) and assorted meat, dry fish, periwinkle and shrimps (optional), vegetables (scent leaves for the South Eastern style and bitter-leaves for the Delta-style), 2 tablespoons ground crayfish, 2 medium onions, chili pepper, iru; locust beans (optional), 2 suppy seasoning stock cubes and salt to taste.
Directions
The first step in preparing the banga soup is to extract the palm fruit concentrate (this is different from the red palm oil used in cooking Nigerian foods). Wash palm fruit thoroughly and place in a sizeable pot, pour adequate water to cover them and cook at medium heat until palm fruits are very soft. Take out the well-cooked palm fruit, using a mortar and pestle pound until the pulp is completely separated from the nuts; without breaking the nuts. Separate the nuts from the pulp and wash the nuts in a small quantity of water, do the same for the pulp too. Wash the pulp in small quantities until the water becomes concentrated. Sieve the concentrate into a separate bowl, repeat this process until all palm fruit pulp has been washed. Allow the concentrate to stand for a while and slowly decant into another pot ensuring that the residues which might have settled at the bottom remains there. You can skip all these if you’re using the tinned palm fruit concentrate.
Wash, season and cook all meats properly and set aside. Dice onions and cut vegetables into tiny pieces and make sure all ground ingredients are ready. Turn on the heat to high and start cooking the palm fruit extract. Allow soup to boil until you notice some red oil at the surface. If the soup appears watery to you, cook for a little while and allow soup to thicken. Add in all other ingredients apart from the vegetables and cook under medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add in scent leaves, stir and taste to make sure all ingredients are blended well. Allow to simmer for about 2-3 minutes, turn off heat and serve with hot white rice or any fufu of your choice.
This recipe appears to be a lot of work right? Well, it’s totally worth it! Try it out soon and let’s hear the outcome. We would love to hear from you! Have a great weekend ahead, we hope you get to cook with Suppy this weekend!