The Igbos are known to cook good soups. This can be traced to the Biafra war, when there was starvation and famine. They got innovative and used different leaves to form different soups.
Today, we explore Oha soup. Oha leaves are gotten from the evergreen tree in Africa. The plant that is botanically known as Pterocarpus mildraedii. It contains many nutrients such as fibre, amino acids, calcium, iron, potassium and vitamin A.
Ingredients
Beef
Stockfish
Periwinkle
Ground crayfish
Ponmo
Palm oil
Onions
Cocoyam or Achi
Oha leaves
Uziza leaves
Seasonings
Salt
Water/Stock
Method
1. Put meat, kponmo and stock fish in a pot, add seasoning and onions, let simmer for 5 minutes then put a little water, cover and let cook till meat is tender.
2.You can add cocoyam while cooking the meat so it can cook together to save time or you can cook the cocoyam separately
3.When it has cooked properly, add 2 cups of water then add Palm oil, allow to cook for about 10minutes. Remove cocoyam and pound in a mortar or blend using blender or a food processor.
4.Add ground crayfish, ground pepper, salt and let cook for another seven minutes
5.Add the blended/ pounded cocoyam paste or achi( before you add achi to your soup, make sure you dissolve it in a little water, if not your soup will cake up). Let the soup cook for about three minutes.
6.Add your Oziza first then add your Oha leaves
7.Let it cook for one minute then turn off the cooker
8. Oha soup is ready. Serve with preferred whether eba, pounded yam, fufu and wheat.