Egusi refers to protein-rich melon seeds obtained from several different melons common to Western Africa.[1] Egusi soup is a common Central and West African stew-like meal made from regional variations of meats and vegetables and thickened with ground egusi seeds. Rosetta is an Ijaw, a river-side ethnic group in south-south Nigeria, and she is teaching me how to make a version of egusi soup she is familiar with that incorporates seafood. She has rinsed and soaked kanda (cow rinds) and dried stock fish (cod) overnight in order to soften them for our meal this afternoon. The pre-soaked kanda and stockfish are added to a large sauce pot on the stove-top set at medium-high temperature. Rosetta adds just enough water to cover the ingredients and covers the pot, leaving it to boil for about half an hour until the fish is soft and breaking apart. In another pot on medium-high temperature she begins to cook chucks of bone-in stewing beef that she has rinsed. To this she adds half a diced onion, a sprinkling of salt to taste and enough water to fill the pot with about an inch of water to help cook the meat. She seasons the beef once it is cooked, breaking apart Knorr soup stalk cubes (which she calls Maggi cubes[2]) and sprinkles them on to the meat. The beef is then fried in another sauce pot to which she has added several inches of vegetable oil and heated on high temperature. She explains to me that frying the beef adds flavour but that she herself often does not fry the meat to make a healthier-version of this commonly-eaten meal. Adding these fried beef chucks to the drained stockfish and kanda mixture Rosetta sets the meat aside and turns to preparing the egusi seeds.
Egusi seeds look very similar to dried pumpkin seeds. Rosetta has purchased a 250g bag of them from the Afro-Caribbean grocery in Guelph and shows me how to get them ready to add to our stew. She rinses the seeds and removes any pieces of husk she finds floating in the rinse water then drains them and puts them into her blender. Adding just enough fresh water to cover the seeds, she blends the egusi into a paste. Now it’s time to begin preparing the remaining seafood ingredients: dried catfish and smoked prawns. I admit, it’s at this stage in the processes I’m starting to get a bit nervous. Having been raised in a rural-Canadian family with a general aversion to all things fishy I confess my appreciation for seafood is slim to none. Rosetta, unlike I, is well-versed in smoked seafood and begins to explain to me how prawns are smoked and prepared back home in Nigeria as she opens a package of them and pours them into a colander for rinsing. Rosetta briefly boils both the prawns and the smoked catfish in hot water to remove any sand that may have gotten into the fish while drying. After draining and rinsing the catfish and prawns we’re ready to start bringing the egusi soup ingredients together.
After placing a large saucepot filled with enough palm oil to coat the bottom of the pan on medium-high Rosetta adds one large diced onion, several large spoonfuls of ground hot pepper, salt to taste, 3 crumbled Knorr cubes and begins to slowly stirs in the egusi paste. Continually stirring the egusi so as not to burn it Rosetta waits for the egusi to begin to thicken. After about 10 minutes of stirring she adds in the prawns, fish and meat mixture until it is evenly coated by the thickened egusi. Finally, she adds several cups of chopped spinach, using it in lieu of smooth amaranth. Smooth amaranth is the preferred vegetable for this dish though it is difficult to find fresh smooth amaranth in groceries and tends to require a trip to Toronto. Spinach is often substituted in its place by most African descendents in Canada. The palm oil has turned the mixture a pale orange colour flecked with green bits of spinach. While traditionally served with garri (eba), a starchy side-dish made from cassava, Rosetta is preparing semolina wheatlets which are more easily available in the Greater Toronto Area. She boils a few cups of water in a small saucepan and adds equal measures of the wheatlets, stirring rapidly as the wheatlets quickly form a thick, sticky ball. Lunch is ready! As Rosetta and I sit down to our bowls of egusi soup (…perhaps more accurately called egusi stew) she shows me how to pinch off pieces of the cooked wheatlets, roll them into small balls and use them to soup up the egusi mixture. She sent me home that evening with a heaping share of stew and a warm ball of wheatlets.
Several days later, inspired by the first Nigerian cooking lesson, I attempted my own variation of egusi stew. Having yet to conquer my personal distaste for seafood I browsed the internet for an egusi stew recipe sans fish. After finding a recipe[3] that called for ingredients I knew I could easily find I headed to my local grocery store. Unable to find egusi, I substituted in pumpkin seeds and prepared them as Rosetta had shown me. Improvising between the online recipe and Rosetta’s teachings I concocted my own egusi soup-inspired meal served on rice with fried plantains. If there are any lessons to be learned from my first foray into egusi soup preparation they are these:
1. Eating with your hands using wheatlet balls as a scoop is much more fun than using utensils.
2. One habenero pepper adds a lot of kick, one that my Caucasian parents would have appreciated knowing about before they took large spoonfuls of my first egusi stew effort.
3. In spite of my best efforts, I am still very much just a beginner Nigerian.
Stacie Irwin - Undergraduate Research Assistant, ECVOntario 2011
Stacie Irwin - Undergraduate Research Assistant, ECVOntario 2011
[1] See IDRC egusi project: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-83035-201_850336-1-IDRC_ADM_INFO.html
[2] For an interesting article on Nigerian’s use of Maggi cubes see http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Opinion/Columns/YemisiOgbe/5501365-179/story.csp
[3] See Egusi Soup: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/egusi-soup/Detail.aspx
