GHANAIAN SOUPS

Recipes for various tasty and delicious types of Ghanaian soups and how they are prepared. It also comes with the foods that are best served with these soups. Ghanaian soups are enjoyed by many the world over. Many have enjoyed various sumptuous soups that they would like to enjoy again by preparing it themselves or it has been a long while since they prepared some so as a result might need some guide as to how to go about it.

Following are various Ghanaian Soup delicacies recipes that are enjoyed by many. Please read through and prepare yours at home, below are the various recipes for various Ghanaian soups:

LIGHT SOUP (With goat meat/chicken)

Ingredients:

500g diced goat or half a chicken, diced
6 whole tomatoes
Half a kpakpo shito (or hot pepper)
10g ginger
10g garlic
2 onions
50g tomato puree
Salt
1 aubergine (also known as a garden egg in Ghana)
Fufu, banku or rice




Preparation:

• wash ginger, garlic, chilli, one of the onions and three of the tomatoes, drain, put in blender, season, and blend to a paste.
• Add the mixture to the meat and allow it to marinade for 10 minutes.
• Put the meat in a pan cook it gently for 10 minutes.
• Add tomato puree and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Add 500ml of water and simmer until the meat is gently cooked.
• Add cube and the other three tomatoes, the diced aubergine, and the remaining chopped onion. Cook for 30 minutes.
• Bring out the remaining onion and tomatoes you added and blend, then add to soup again, cover pan to a simmer. Season to flavor.
• serve with fufu, banku or rice.






Groundnut soup

Groundnut soup is one in every of delicacies within the life of Ghanaian nationals regardless of their ethnic historical past. It is one soup that majority of Ghanaians if not all like. I will take you step by step via the guidance of this unique tasty soup. However first, let's get started with the ingredients you will need and also the precise utensils.

The Ingredients:
»1 cup Groundnut paste
»Meat
»Fish
»3 medium Tomatoes
»Pepper(dried/powdered)
»3 Medium Onions
»Okro(optional)
»8 cups water
»Salt to taste
»1 Stock cube
»Any spice or seasoning you prefer


Utensils:
»Any pot or cooking bowl large enough the way you want
»Laddle to stir
»Asanka*(Earthenware pot)/Blender(if you want)
»Tapoli*
»Knife




Step 1:
Cut and place all of the assorted of fish and meat you want to use in the preparation of your soup in the cooking bowl or pot you want to cook in. Add the seasonings you want very well put the content on medium heat to steam for approximately 10 mins. You may add a little water to create the steam. Flip the content over or stir on occasion to ensure that the entire content is well steamed. Put off the heat whilst it is nicely steamed.

NOTE: You can steam to whatever time you want and also the level of steam and time it may take to steam largely depends on the amount of heat you apply. But don't steam over very high heat.

Step 2:
Put a desirable quantity of the groundnut paste in another cooking bowl(could be smaller) and mix with just enough water to make a very thick mixture and put on fire.
Stir continuously while it's on fire until you start noticing the presence of oil forming on the mixture.That indicates the readiness of your groundnut to make the soup.


Step 3:
Add extra water to the groundnut after 'frying' it and mix together with your hands thoroughly. Mix it till the content is dissolved into the water and then use a colander to drain the mixture so that any undissolved content will be left behind into the pot with the steamed meat.


Step 4:
Put the content on the fire to simmer. Peel the onions nicely and add to the content on the fire with the tomatoes also. It is important to make sure they are well washed.


Step 5:
Allow the content to simmer till cooked but before taking out and grinding the tomatoes and onions when they are very soft and add it to the soup on fire for some minutes before the soup is ready. Add the stock cube and stir.

To Know the soup is ready, you'd notice oil forming on top of the soup and the flavour coming out nicely. Add salt to taste, wait till it dissolves.
The soup is ready!!!


*Serve with Fufu, Banku, Rice/rice balls, Gari etc.

PALM NUT SOUP (with Fufu)

For the palm nut soup

2 Large Tins of Palm Nuts (substitute with a can of condensed palm nut)

1 large tps salt

6 small-medium cloves garlic

3 Cooking onions

6-8 Fresh Tomatoes

6 Okre stalks (or as much as you like)

6 Garden Eggs (or as much as you like)

8-10 Green Kpakpo Shito peppers

1Lb Beef (approx. 400g mix of on the bone and diced)

1 Smoked Eel

1 Smoked ‘Salmon’ (this is actually smoked mackerel but Ghanaians call it Salmon)

½ Smoked Tuna

(You can use your preferred mix of fish but “plenty different fishoh—makes it tastyoh”)

6 Large ‘Sea’ Snails (actually from the forest…)

For the fufu

3-4 Cassavas

3 Green Plantain

A cup of water to add to the mix when pounding

Method

Prep –

Pound the palm nuts in a large pestle and mortar for about 10-15 minutes until the bowl and ‘chaff’ is a bright orange and the seeds have come out of their shell. Wash all the fresh ingredients well. Dice the onion and garlic. Chop your garden egg and okre.

1. Add the meat, onion, garlic, salt and tomatoes to a large pot and steam on medium-high heat until juices start to clear and water is forming in the pot.
2. Empty the pounded nuts into a pot and rinse then sieve several times until you get a dark brown tinted orange juice with no chaff. Add the palm nut juice to the pot on the stove.
3. Leave this boiling for about 30 minutes.
4. Add the fish in chunks you like the size of
5. Remove snail from shell. This is a bit gross. You need a long sharp, thin knife or metal skewer to stab through the middle, twist, lever and pull out. Wash well and trim any gross bits, remove head. Not for the squeamish. You can also ask for this to be done at the market when you buy them but I wanted to film it so poor Evelyn had to do it at home…
6. At this point you should have a bubbling pot of palm nut on the hob – add your Kpapko peppers (I would pierce them to get the heat out of them but Evelyn added them as they were)
7. Add the snails
8. Add the chopped garden egg and okre
9. Cook for a further 40 minutes until fish and meat are all tender

GREEN SOUP (Ebunubunu)
Ebunubunu is basically a Light Soup base mixed with smoothly blended Nkontonmire (cocoyam leaves) which naturally gives it that green color. Some people prepare it without the light soup base but I am yet to try that. Green is a sign of health isn't it?

Here’s What You Need:

2 Bunches of Nkontonmire

Dry River fish ( Faan loo)

4 large tomatoes

2 medium sized onions

Chilli pepper aka Kpakposhito (as much as you desire)

4 Giant African Snails

Goat meat

1 Tablespoonful of Lemon Juice

Salt

1 Maggi cube


Directions

Light soup base

1. Blend together tomatoes, onions and pepper. Set aside

2. Spice up the goat meat with ginger and onions; preferably the night before.

3. Boil the snails in the shell. Pry them from the shell. The Giant African Snails are very slimy delicious creatures. But the slime can get icky. Sprinkle a generous amount of salt over them and work it through with your hand for about 2 minutes. Wash under cold water and pour the lemon juice over it. The stickiness is much reduced and the flesh almost feels dry.

4. Wash the river fish, which tends to have grains of sand stuck inside its gills and abdomen.

5. Wash the leaves under running water and peel the leaves from the veiny stem. Boil for less than 10 minutes. Blend very smoothly, and set aside.

6. Place a deep saucepan on the stove and add the goat meat. Steam the meat well as you know how tough our Billy and Nanny goats are.

7. Add the snails.

8. Pour the blended tomato mix unto the steaming meats and stir for about 2 minutes and pour a generous amount of water into the pan. Well until the meat is covered and is half-way in the pan. Some choose to sieve the tomatoes but that’s nutritious chaff being thrown away.

9. Add the dry river fish so it cooks with the soup and take it out for later. This I find helps prevent the fish from dismantling.

10. Boil for about 20 minutes. Add 1 cube of Maggi for spicing.

11. The light soup should be about ready. Pour in the blended Nkontonmire. Top up with more water.

12. Add salt to taste. Allow another 5-10 minutes for final cooking time.