Name: Egusi Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h 5 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Nigerian
Ingredients: 250 g egusi (ground melon seeds); 150 ml red palm oil; 600 g beef or goat, cut into chunks; 150 g stockfish or dried fish, soaked; 100 g smoked fish, flaked; 2 onions, 1 blended and 1 chopped; 3 scotch bonnets, blended; 2 tbsp ground crayfish; 2 stock cubes; 400 g spinach or bitter leaf, roughly chopped; 1 ¼ litres beef stock; 2 tsp fine sea salt; 1 tsp iru (locust beans), optional

Egusi Soup

Ground melon seeds cooked in palm oil with leafy greens, meat and stockfish until they set into rich, savoury curds. Thick enough to eat with pounded yam, and one of West Africa's most distinctive dishes.

2 hr 5 min total Serves 6 servings Medium

The ground egusi is added to the hot oil in lumps and left undisturbed for several minutes so it sets into curds rather than dissolving into a uniform paste — that lumpy texture is the defining characteristic. Palm oil is essential for both the colour and the particular flavour that no other fat reproduces.

Egusi Soup, in preparation
Photograph credit: Egusi Delicacy by Ourlibrary · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

The Method for Egusi Soup

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Boil the beef with the chopped onion, a stock cube and a teaspoon of salt in 1.2 litres of water for 50 minutes until tender. Reserve the meat and its stock.
Add the soaked stockfish for the last 20 minutes of that time.
Mix the ground egusi with about 120 ml of water to form a thick, stiff paste that holds its shape.
Heat the palm oil in a wide pot over medium heat for 2 minutes until it loosens and brightens, but do not let it smoke.
Add the blended onion and scotch bonnet and fry 6 minutes until the raw smell has gone.
Drop the egusi paste into the oil in tablespoon-sized lumps, spaced apart. Do not stir.
Let them fry undisturbed for 8 minutes until set and lightly browned underneath, then turn the lumps once and fry 5 minutes more.
Add 800 ml of the reserved stock, the ground crayfish, iru, remaining stock cube and salt. Simmer 20 minutes, breaking the egusi lumps only roughly.
Add the meat, stockfish and smoked fish and simmer 10 minutes.
Fold in the spinach, cook 4 minutes until just wilted, and serve with pounded yam or eba.

Related guide: Ingredient substitutions.

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Worth Getting Right

Leave the egusi lumps alone while they fry. Stirring turns the whole soup into a smooth paste, which is not what you want.
Red palm oil is not interchangeable with any other oil. It is the colour and the flavour.
Add the greens last and briefly, so they stay green and retain some texture.

Pairs Well With

Pounded yam, eba or fufu · A cold beer · Extra pepper sauce on the side

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Fufu, Nigerian Fried Rice, Pounded Yam.

Storage

Refrigerate up to 4 days and freeze 3 months. Reheat gently with a splash of stock.

Nutrition per Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Gluten-Free option Dairy-Free No Added Sugar

Gluten-free when made with stock cubes labelled gluten-free.