Nigeria – Gbegiri Soup

By Verdzekov Bernard

In Africa, there are so many tribes and cultures practiced by millions of people in different areas of Africa. In Africa, we don’t joke with traditional meals. Most of which I have already writing on. These meals are so delicious and spicy. The tools we use in cooking are traditional, like the grinding stone and pawning mortar. This are tools we use in cooking. Hardly will you see the use of modern tools except the person is not in possession of the cooking tools. This is culture and tradition. The ingredients we use are worst. Why I say it is worst? This is because most of them you won’t see out of Africa. Oh yes. So many if not all of the ingredients we use in cooking are local. Dogged from the soil and some still even found in some particular areas of Africa and not all parts of Africa. Geographical factors have a role to play in this. 

In Africa, you will see a particular meal only in big event like marriage celebrations in particular, the installation of a new chief of a particular land, and even with the birth of a new child in the land. It is traditional and the preparation of this meal reminds us of our “four father” that is our parent that build up the way of live we living and practicing now. It is traditional and so important to the people. 

With evolutional growth, many people have come to know about this traditional meal and love them. Some want to cook and eat and others want to use for business purpose. What a great thing. Because of this, the use of local tools has diminished too. why do I say so? Because of the advancement in technology. Most cooking tools are made electronic and thou the help to limit or shorten cooking time, which is a good thing, in our localities we still use local tools. Why? Because it is traditional and can’t be forgotten. Sometimes you hear someone say it is even nicer to use locals tools to prepare a particular meal than modern tools.

Today, you are going to read on how you can prepare gbegiri soup. Gbegiri soup is a Nigerian soup popularly eating by the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria. This cuisine is made from peeled beans and normally served with buka stew and ewedu.

This particular cuisine is usually served with ewedu. The process of cooking this cuisine will be separated. That is, I will start with the gbegiri and end with ewedu. this is to avoide you from being confused. So, follow carefully. I will name it first process (1^st) and second process (2^nd);

Ingredients

• 2 cups of brown beans
• Pepper 
• Maggi
• Salt to taste 
• Ground crayfish
• 2 cups of palm oil
• Beef about 800g (optional)
• 250kg of ewedu leafs 
• Vegetable oil
• Curry powder 
• Garlics, green spice, ginger.
• Tomatoes 
• Onions 
• Pepper (optional)

First Process (1^st)

• If you are using a gas cooker or three stone fire side to prepare this dish, at any one moment, if you want to cook a particular meal and let us say you go online to research and you see that, part of the ingredients use for preparation beans is included, keep in mind that, in order to minimize cooking time and fuel, you will have to pre-sock the beans and the best time to do this is overnight so that during the day, you commence with cooking immediately. This process of soaking actually helps to make the beans soft and won’t take long to boil or cook at minimizes consumption of fuelwood or gas. Make sure you soak already peeled beans and even if this bean is not peeled, remove the outer layer after soaking is still easy. So, this soaking process is very necessary and learn to practice it.
• Put the water and boil. Let the water be above the beans. Allow it to boil for about 1hr or more. This is to make the beans softer. 
• Keep beans aside after boiling and boil meat. Cut your meat into small desired slices, wash well and Boil. Boil with meat onions and salt to taste.
• Using a blender, blend your beans. 
• After blending, using a sieve, sieve the blended beans. The aim here is to separate the beans chaffs. After each sieve, throw the chaffs.
• Put pot on fire, add your palm oil, and make the heat medium. Make sure you don’t bleach the oil. Add your beans and stir. Make sure it’s not too thick or watery. Add water as desired but it shouldn’t be to watery.
• After about 15min, add your meat stock and stir well. This stirring is to avoid soup burn.
• Add cray fish and stir. After about 5min if to thick, add little bit of water but not tomuch. Allow for 3min then remove from heat.

Second Process (2^nd)

• Select the ewedu leaves. That is the good once from the bad leaves.
• Wash carefully but thoroughly to remove any dirt from the leaves such as sand.
• Put a pot with water and boil for about 20min. 
• Add pinch of salt and your maggi. 
• After it is soft enough, remove and blend using a blender. Blend all the leaves. Your ewedu soup is ready. the soup is usually eating joined with tomatoes source. The process for you to prepare your tomatoes source continues.  
• Boil meet with salt, pepper and with sliced onions about half a bulb of onions in a pot until is ready. This boiling process will take approximately 25-30min. After this is set, put aside while prepare the other ingredient for the stew.
• Boil your fresh tomatoes, making sure the water you put in the pot should be more than the tomatoes in the pot, drain well, then slice into small pieces and put in a blender and blend. Put in a boll. Then put the other ingredients like slice onions, chopped green spices, garlics, pepper, ginger and blend all together. In one pot, put all the blended ingredients into the pot you will use for the preparation of the stew. 
• Turn on the heat and allow to boil for about 10min. steer the pot frequently to prevent the paste from sticking to the pot. 
• Into the pot, add your meat stock with canned tomatoes and allow it to cook for about 5min or more. This can process tomatoes is needed just to increase the color of the stew to me. So, it could even be optional to some people. Make sure you use some of the stock not all so as to add to the source during the preparation. Because, in case of water shortage, you will use the stock water 
• Add about 1 or 1-1/2 glass of groundnut oil into the pot and steer well leaving it to cook for about 5min. Add water if you see the source is getting dry but not ready. The water most likely to be used should be the stock from the boiled meat. 
• Add curry powder, with your maggi and salt to taste. This should be about 2 sachets of curry powder. This curry powder is good as it helps increase the flavor of the stew you preparing. After adding the curry powder to the pot, you may finish the remaining stock water into the pot and then leave for about 5-10min steering it after 2 or 3min each so as to prevent the source from sticking to the pot.
• Your stew is ready. Serve with Ewedu soup and gbegiri joined.

The acompanment could be with garri or Amala. With amala;

• Amala is made from yams or cassava flour. 
• Boil water, about two to three cups of water. 
• With one or two cups of cassava or yams flour, pour into the hot the water while you steer using a wooden stick. When the water has been sucked all by the flour keep steering. This time you will be needing force. Steer well. if too soft, add some more flour and steer well. 
• Your amala is ready. Serve with gbegiri, Ewedu and tomatoes or pepper source with meat. This is the regular combination.

ENJOY…