Groundnut soup is a popular soup in Nigeria and Africa at large. The soup seems to take the place of egusi soup (melon soup) in terms of taste and preparation methods. The relationship between the Egusi soup and groundnut soup is like Ogbono soup and Okra soup. They both have the same preparation methods and the same ingredients can be used in cooking both soups.
Though groundnut soup seems not to be generally known or accepted by everyone like the melon soup (Egusi soup), some tribes in Nigeria and Africa at large eat groundnut soups more than the melon soup.
Cooking groundnut soup may not be as difficult as you thought. If you are familiar with egusi soup preparations, then cooking groundnut soup wouldn’t be a problem.
For instance, the same approach used in the preparation of melon soup can be used in the preparation of groundnut soup even the ingredients for both soups are the same.
This will teach you the following:
The ingredients you need to make good groundnut soup
The procedures of making the ground soup
Things that really make a difference when cooking groundnut soup
All you need is to take your time and digest the whole content of this post for better understanding.
INGREDIENTS FOR GROUNDNUT SOUPS
As stated earlier, all the ingredients used in cooking Egusi soup can be used in cooking groundnut soup. Based on that, you will need the following items:
Two cups of raw peeled groundnuts
Fresh fish (Any quantity you can afford)
Beef (Any quantity you can afford)
Cow Tribe (Shaki)(small quantity)
Smoked/dried fish (small quantity)
Stocked fish (small quantity)
Red Palm Oil (one tin milk cup)
Ground Crayfish (about 3 tablespoons)
A small quantity of Squeezed Fresh bitter leaves or Pumpkin leaves
Salt, Pepper, and your Maggi cubes should available in your kitchen.
PROCEDURES FOR THE PREPARATION
The starting point is to wash all the meats, fishes, and other ingredients.
Steam the stockfish, shaki, and beef for about 10minutes. Add salt, Maggi, and onions with little pepper. You can still soak these items in clean water after washing with the exclusion of the beef if you don’t want to steam them.
Bring the pot down and filter out the water used in the steaming. Keep the water in a separate bow.
The next thing is to prepare the groundnuts. To do that, roast the groundnuts in a frying pan, by pouring the groundnuts into a hot frying pan placed on your stove. Stir the groundnuts in the pan until it roasts then bring it down to cool to room temperature. Remove any burnt groundnuts and traces of shafts, then pour the remaining roasted groundnuts into your blender dry-miller to mill it.
Prepare the vegetable or the bitter leaves and place it in a separate bow. You can still use frozen spinach instead.
You are now ready to start cooking properly;
Place the pot for the groundnut soup on your stove and start heating. First of all, add the water you retrieved from the steamed beef, stockfish, and cow tripe (shaki).
Then drop the shaki again into the pot if it has not softened otherwise leave it and move to the next step.
Pour the milled groundnuts into the pot and start stirring it until the groundnut blends with the water in the pot. Continue adding water and stirring until you have the quantity of water needed for the soup in the pot and the milled groundnuts have mixed very well with the water.
Now add the steamed meats, and fishes into the pot and start adding all the ingredients one after another and continue to stir the soup as you are adding more things into the pot.
Groundnut soup needs steady stirring so that it does not get burnt beneath the pot. Therefore, you need to be stirring the soup at least every five minutes until everything in it is ready and the soup gets ready for consumption.
Once the groundnut soup is ready, you can serve it with fufu, Garri, or Semo.
