Fabulous Dried Okasi Leaves
Dried Okasi Leaves are used to add flavour to soups and stews. The dried okasi leaves is also known as wild spinach and has a slightly bitter flavour.
The green leafy vegetable is used in cooki
Eru/Afang in African Eats Cuisine
ng across Africa and South America, in particular Nigerian Afang soups.
Afang soup is made from Afang leaves (otherwise known as wild spinach, Okazi, Koko, fumbua or eru) and Waterleaf.
Of course, there are different versions across Africa and even in the diaspora.
The waterleaf can be substituted for spinach since waterleaf is not readily available everywhere.
This leafy , savoury soup is cooked with palm oil and served alongside Nigerian swallow such as eba, pounded yam and semovita
This recipe is the diaspora version and probably the cheapest version.
How to make Afang soup this African Cuisine
This has to be one of the easiest soups to prepare. It starts with seasoning and cooking your meat.
The savoury elements of the soup are buried in the stock. Feel free to add more orishirishi like dry fish or shrimp.
Once that is done, season the stock, pour in a 1/2 cup of palm oil, blended okazi (Afang leaf) and your chopped spinach or waterleaf.
Let it simmer for a 10 minutes and YOUR SOUP IS READY
Ingredients
- Okazi or Afang leaf– this can be dry or fresh. This vegetable is slightly bitter but I promise you that you will love it.
- Spinach or Water leaf– You do not need a lot of water from your stock because these vegetables release a lot of water. this gives your soup a nice balance which is not too watery and not too thick
- Meats– You need an assortment of meats. I usually go for goat meat and tripe because of how flavourful they are but you can opt for beef, dryfish,shrimp, periwinkle. The MORE the MERRIER!
- Palm oil– will this even be a West- African soup without our dear “ole” palm oil to give us the local flavour?
- Scotch bonnet– For HEAT! ouch ouch
- Crayfish– This is a fish seasoning made from actual dry fish! the flavor it gives this soup is impeccable. It is also optional so you can skip it if you are allergic
