The Nigerian egusi soup is one of the most popular soup been prepared all over Nigeria. It is called Miyan Gushi in Hausa, Ofe Egusi in Igbo land and Efo Elegusi in Yoruba.
The most important ingredients is the melon seed. Different people have different method of cooking the Egusi soup, some will prefer to fry the melon seed with red oil while others will add hot water to the Egusi and then add it little by little into the pot of soup and for most part of the Igbo tribe, some do the "akpuruakpu" method, where the egusi is molded into balls and cooked in the soup(mostly for white soup).
So for todays recipe(low budget) I used the following ingredients to prepare the Egusi soup
1: 2 cups of Melon seeds(Egusi)
2: Vegetable(ugu/pumpkin leaves)
3: Fish and kpomo
4: Stock fish, Crayfish
5: Pepper and Salt,2 stock cubes (to taste)
6:Red palm oil(2 cooking spoons)
7:Tomato paste
COOKING DIRECTIONS
1: Wash all your stock i.e. fish, kpomo, stock fish and boil together for about 10-15 minutes. This is to allow the stock fish to be soft and easy to eat.
2: Add the grounded egusi into a bowel, add water from your cooked stock and stir and add the mixture to the pot of soup and allow to cook for about 5 minutes
3: Add the tomato paste(it gives your egusi soup a different taste), also add the pepper, salt and stocks cubes to taste
4: Add your red oil
5: Wash your vegetable and add to the pot of soup, stir everything together and cover the pot
6: Cook for 5-10 minutes
7: Turn off the heat and our soup is ready.
The soup can be served with Eba(Garri), Pounded Yam, Amala etc.