The beauty of being Nigerian amongst other things is the tons of relatives you have. Ask any Nigerian, we have enough relatives to fill a football field many times over. I guess it has to do with our grand fathers and great grand fathers marrying many wives and having many children, who then went on to proceate the earth as per The Lord’s command. Lol. With inter tribal marriages, you now have a wonderful blend of relatives to boot, and with that comes exposure to different languages, cultures, dressing, traditions and of course food. Y’all know that I am half Delta, half Ogun, what I would like to let you know is that there is also a little Edo thrown in the mix and Ghana too because my paternal grandma was half Ghanian, half Edo (Benin to be precise). I even have a Ghanian name – Amma, which means a girl born on Saturday. The Edo side of the family meant I spent many Christmases and holidays in Benin because of relatives who lived there. I have first and second cousins from Edo State. There are lots of Edosa’s, Efosa’s Esi’s, Ohimai’s, Osas, Ikponwosa’s, Adesuwa’s, Efe’s, Ehi’s, Osayigbovo’s, Isoken’s, Oghogho, Osaretin’s, and Uyi’s that I am related to. If you guys see your names here, I am shouting out to you.
As regards food, what I was introduced to from that side of the family was Owo soup with boiled green plantains which always caused trouble for me because I would eat all the soup licking my fingers in glee and eye the green plantains which I hated. Another soup I was introduced to was Black Soup, which Mama served in a black earthenware pot. My cousins and I used to joke that it looked like Juju food. Juju meaning black magic. Hehehehe. It really did to us kids because the colour, the slightly bitter taste plus the pot it was served in, did not help matters. Especially when in those home videos we were never allowed to watch, the witch doctor always had some simmering dark looking concoction in a black earthenware pot. She always cooked it with huge chunks of bush meat which I think was the only reason we ate that soup. That meat made up for everything else. My experience with this soup is part and parcel of knowing how to wash bitter leaves. I did not think it was funny then. Just my luck I had two grandma’s who made sure I knew how to wash those leaves till your fingers were raw. Luckily she left the stone grinding of the vegetables for her and my Aunties to do. Phew.
It is called Black soup because of the colour. The vegetables she used (bitter leaf and efinrin) are stone grounded and added to a palm nut meaty and fish stock base. My grandma loved anything bitter. Geez. She had an entire array of bottled herbs which she made us line up and each drink a tablespoon of. The grandchild that will decline had not been born yet. She had herbs for EVERYTHING, with tales of how it will make you grow big, strong and healthy. Not to mention tall. The irony, because the woman was barely 5ft 4. I shudder when I remember those herbs, with their nasty brown and sometimes green or even black colour, with Lord knows what floating it in (sticks, vegetables, whitish stuff, ugh), for Lord knows how many years.The liquid in those bottles will put the fear of God into you. You just misbehave and she threatens you with a spoonful of herbs, you will obey with immediate effect. Don’t you dare cough or sneeze beside her, you will get a spoonful, or per chance a sudden rise in temperature, she will whip out a bottle with stern looks daring you to not open your mouth or feel the lash of a whip she aptly placed by her side. Grandma’s are just the same everywhere and I would love to hear your own stories about yours.
Enough of stories, let’s get to cooking
You will need
1 1/2 cups of blended bitter leaves
1 cup of Efinrin – basil is a good substitute
Assorted Meat – i used goat meat and beef
Assorted offals
1 big piece of stockfish
1 piece of smoked fish
2 – 3 pieces of at a rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper
1/2 cup of crayfish
1 1/2 cooking spoon of Palm nut cream
Seasoning cube – knorr chicken preferred
Salt
I have a big batch of bitter leaves which my mum brought for me, and in my experience it loses its potency after a while in the freezer, so I am using it in as many dishes as I can to exhaust it. I am preparing this soup from memory. If I missed anything out, you the good people of Edo State please point it out.
How To
1. Boil and Season your meats. if you are using offals like liver, heart and kidney boil in a separate pot. For saki and cow leg, boil in the same pot as the meats. Remember to cook the meats with a strong tasting smoked fish variety like stockfish, smoked red prawns, eja sawa etc. I wanted a really strong and rich stock, so I used stockfish and later added smoked fish before the meats were completely soft.
2. Whilst the meats are boiling, proceed to washing your bitter leaves. I explained the process HERE. Once the leaves are less bitter, pour in a blender and blend till smooth. Set this aside.
3. Pick the efinrin or basil leaves off the stalk, rinse and blend too, then set aside
4. Blend the ata rodo and add to the pot of cooked meats and stock. By now, you should have added the offals to the pot of meats.
5. Once the pepper has dissolved into the stock, add the palm kernel cream. I used 1 heaped cooking spoon and a half. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: you can use palm oil too, but palm nut cream is so much better for this soup. It adds a certain authentic and local flavour to the soup. I used the canned version. If you can’t source it, use palm oil
Let the palm cream dissolve. This should take about 3 – 5 minutes, depending on your cooker, then add crayfish. Taste the palm nut stock, you want it to be really strong and rich . My personal tip, slightly salty. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: This is because bitter leaf has a really strong and over powering flavour, hence you need a stock that is rich enough to match it, otherwise all you will taste is bitter leaf and nothing more.
6. Once you are happy with the stock, add the bitter leaf to the pot. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: add the bitter leaf one cup first and stir, if it is not enough, add 1/2 a cup more. Like I said in the tip above, you don’t want a pot of soup where you have this strong bitter leaf taste like a herbal concoction. Stir and watch the soup change colour. Green at first, then it will darken. Give it 2 – 3 minutes bubbling up before you taste. Bitter leaves have a lot of fibre in it, and you will notice that the soup has thickened considerably, not a problem. Dilute slightly with beef stock or water and continue cooking. When it has darkened in colour, taste again and you should notice that the bitter leaves have combined beautifully with the stock. If it is still tasting really strong and herbal, lower the heat and let it cook some more.
7. Add the efinrin. I remember Mama’s Black soup being bitter with a strong hint of the efinrin flavour too. I am guessing that the quantity of the bitter leaf must have been a little more than the efinrin hence my 1 1/2 cup bitter leaf to 1 cup efinrin. Once you add the Efinrin, stir and lower the heat as high heat will deplete its flavour fast. Remember that efinrin is added lastly to pepper soup? This is why. Give it another 3 – 5 minutes cooking on low heat, stirring every minute or so. Taste as you go along and half way through add a little more crayfish to finish off. When you are satisfied with the taste overall, take it off the heat …………..and you are done.
hot, bubbling black soup
Black soup is really delicious. The aroma is heavenly. Efinrin is such an amazing herb, it makes everything better. The bitter leaf will have a bitter but sweet after taste to it. Honestly the taste of this soup is something better experienced yourself. I hope you try it out. A coincidence my Grandma would find very amusing. I have not been feeling too well for the past few days and I had this and it really did make me feel better. I guess grandma and her herbs, there really are some magical healing properties to it.
In honour of my Grandma, I served it in a black ceramic square bowl. I don’t have the black earthenware pot, so I thought this would serve.
White plates also showcase this soup fabulously
I have shared my grandma herbal concoction experience, I really would like to hear yours. Hehehehe. Let us all reminisce and have a good laugh about the woman who gave our mothers’ or fathers’ life.
P.S – up next from Edo state from me would be Owo soup
Lol @ your Grandma. Mine owned a poultry and the morning ritual included picking up fresh eggs as the chickens laid them (for breakfast). We didn’t get any herbs but we sure learnt how to kill live chickens and pluck their feathers. We had to keep quiet when plucking the chicken because “talking made the feathers grow back” and I can almost say that I saw this happen more than once. Lol. In retrospect it was probably because we were talking too much that we lost focus and probably didn’t pluck an area properly :).
Thanks for the post on black soup! My grandma doesn’t make it with bitter leaf. She uses another leaf. Unfortunately, I only know the Edo name. It is called Eberumuhen. Perhaps a little digging on your part can fetch the English name?
LMAO @the feathers tale. Grandma’s sure knew how to tell stories to scare you into doing what they want. Kill live chickens, #faints. I always made sure I was never around when that happened. Even to pluck the feathers used to safe the hell out of me. Let me ask one of my cousins for the English name. One of them will fish it out, or at least a picture of what it looks like. It may be familiar for all you know. Even the native name for Black Soup I can’t remember. Thanks for your grandma story
Does Dooney’s Kitchen have an Instagram account?
Yes it does. simply dooneyskitchen
Why is donkey kitchen not on YouTube? That would have really help watching her cook it 🙂
My grandma (blessed memory) had a special herbal concotion (soup) she named it HOSPITAL TOO FAR, the soup lived up to its name……lol. She never liked cooking in a modern kitchen…she had a special mud hut at the back of the house and she only used firewood. … so cooking in my grandma’s house was always tedious.
I am an expert bitter leaf washer n grinding stone user all thanks to my grandma.
Thanks for the black soup recipe.
Aaaaaw, Ibukun, that was lovely to read. I’m sure you miss her. Mine had a coal fired stove for when she ran out of gas. She hated kerosene stoves. Oh dear, she would make you fan the life out of those charcoal pieces till they caught fire, and a roaring fire for that matter. We would fan till our arms hurt, but the food was so worth it. Thankfully she spared us from using the grinding stone but the bitter leaves, i can compete on. Thanks for sharing
well, just got to know about this site.
And it was worth my while and filled my mouth with smiles and laughter
The omebe(black soup)local esan name was last eaten by me like 10 years ago and hoping my daughter will like it.l would have to give it a TRY after seeing ur output.U did a very good job.
But an observation,on the Tin of the Palm kernel oil one is advised to heat d sauce for about 20/30 mins before using it to cook.
THUMPS UP for a Job well done with my Native soup
All d other comments above reminded me of my Uni days in the family house in Ekpoma where u had to use the grinding stone to blend vegetables for Soups and Stews for a family of 9 to 10 persons,and God help you when u have family members come visiting from Lagos over the Weekend,you would almost grind ur fingers with the Vegetables.
I actually enjoy when I get feedback on my food from people who it is native to their culture without attacks and Lord knows what I faced today on Facebook. You just restored my hope and faith. Especially as a newcomer to the site. For that I say thank you. Thanks for almost telling me the native name for black soup, I had forgotten. About heating the palm kernel paste, that method will be possible if you are cooking Banga or Ofe Akwu as the palm kernel is the soup itself and you will be using lots and lots of it. For black soup, the palm kernel is for flavour and the only oily addition, if you get my drift. I only used a little of it and as per the pictures, you can see that it boiled for a while till the oil floated to the top.
Aaaaaaw, lucky me I escaped grinding with eh stone but watching my grandma and my aunts do it used to make me shiver. I can imagine. Thank goodness for technology. I hope you try it out with your daughter. She will like it don’t worry. Black soup is part and parcel of Mummy, of course she will like it. Lol
Wow, I am from Edo (Ishan). This is what we call Omebe (hope i spelt it right). You are just awesome. Hehe
Aaaaaw, thanks Anthonia. Coming from an Edo girl, I am blushing
Dunni,
I am a first time visitor to your blog and I am definitely here to stay. I have just gotten married last Saturday to a very loving but traditional Edo dude and he absolutely relishes this soup and I absolutely had no clue on how to make it. This is the clearest guide I have received on how to make this soup so far. I will be giving it a definite try once we get home plus I have also been thinking about how to revamp my daily cooking menu when we return back to England and you just walked into my life. Thank you for the amazing work you do and I will be here to give my support at anytime you need it to get the recognition you deserve.
Aaaaaw, congrats on your wedding and I wish you Happy Married Life. Please let me know how it turns out. Just go into the recipe with confidence and you will do fine. I hope you try the rest of the Edo dishes that I have put up. Thank you for your kind words and the promise of support. it is truly appreciated. Happy New Year
Haha! This definitely brought back memories. And the earthen pot too….lol!
My mum still cooks this anytime we are home for the holidays. It is one of my favorites. She usually adds some ground or pounded pepper soup spices too, those black stringy ones and the round brown ones that are like smooth nutmeg (sorry for the descriptions…don’t know the names). They add a really nice flavor to the black soup. Also instead of going through the stress of washing bitter leaves, we usually just boil them for a bit and rinse. It gets rid of some of the bitterness and it makes blending (or grounding in my mum’s kitchen) easier. It is a very healthy soup. No need to boil the efirin.
Oh and did you end up writing about the Owo? Owo is delicous. Since you don’t like unripe plaintain, try it with boiled yam…..heavenly! I actually prefer yam and owo.
Hi Ehi, thanks for the tip about those two spices. Now I am very intrigued and will be making black soup like that next time. No, I am yet to write about Owo soup. It will feature in my next batch of cooking
This is my first time on this blog. WoW!!!! Black soup!! woohoo! I married Edo . I tried to cook this soup a couple times but the outcome was…… (i leave that to your imaginatiom. lol).. so im definitely going to try it again with dooney’s help and the reassuring comments from the edo girls in the house! i hail all of una o. Omonomose (i hope i got it right). BUT i have a question : can i use dried bitter leaf for this soup? you know those ones they send to us from naija. i have a bag of dried and veryyyyyy bitter leaves! i dont know how to wash off the bitter taste (at least to a level that i can accomodate). so kindly help a sister! thank you!!
Thanks enovwo. Hmmmn, dried bitter leaves, I have always crushed them and put in soup but you can soak in hot water for a while to let the bitterness seep out into the water. That should work
Thanks Dooney!! I will try that method. Hopefully I should be able to blend the leaves in a food processor to get the same consistency you used to prepare the soup. Abi? Or should I use a mortar to crush the leaves after boiling?thanks a million for your help!!
Use a food processor please. Anything that will save you stress in cooking, I am up for it
Dooney dearie!! Thanks for the recipe!!!! I made black soup and hubby said it was good!! Just what I wanted to hear. W now have an empty pot. Haha. I ate it a lot! I didn’t use the crushed leaves. Patience was not with me that day. She waka comot. Hahaha. Due to the “absence” of patience, I went to the African store to buy frozen bitter leaves and it was good! I’ll try the crushed leaves another day. Thanks a lot!!!!!
You are welcome. Really pleased you enjoyed it
@Chima all edo men are traditional .I married myself:).
I’m making black soup again!!! Thanks to Dooney! We love it. May God continue to give you more and more ideas to help families all over the world! Amen.
Amen henrie, thanks. I hope you enjoy your soup
hi dooney, this palm kernel cream any substitute?
i have dried bitterleaf (which i don’t like by the way) thinking of soups to maybe change my mind about it plus hubby is Edo would be nice to surprise him with this. Thank you for all your yummy recipes
Hi Elsama, no substitute I’m afraid, but you can use a little palm oil if you wish. I hope you enjoy it
Please Dooneyrooney what do we eat this black soup with oo. eba, pounded yam, starch or … Abi is it just a soup like pepper soup? Please help a sister out
Black soup is eaten with any starchy solid. Eba, Pounded yam semovita etc
ok. thanks.
also this palm nut cream, is it the oil extracted while preparing banga?
No, it isnt Nero. The oil floats to the top a bit after a long period of cooking
Dooney! You saved me from disgrace today o! Sooo, my grandma taught me how to make this soup and I kinda forgot but I had made a lot of noise that I would cook this soup for my in-laws. Needless to say, I couldn’t be reading from my phone and cooking at the same time with them watching before they ask their son what kind of 21st century wife he married. Lol. Sooooo, I studied the “steps” over a period of 2 days and cooked it seamlessly today muttering under my breathe “I hope I didn’t miss a step!” over and over again. It came out PERFECT! The one thing I did differently was to add iru before adding the palm kernel cream. It added an extra authentic taste to it. I had everyone licking their fingers and their bowls. Thanks so much!
Aaaaaaaw, big hugs for you o. Very well done, your secret is safe with me
Please did you use onions to boil the meat?
No, I didn’t
I made my first Edo black soup, yaaaaay! I just saw your response about the onions, I used a little to boil the meat & fish- I’m sure next time around my soup will be more “authentic” without the onions! But hubby enjoyed it (He’s from Benin City), I think he was just impressed I made the effort. All thanks to Dooney!
Very well done, really pleased for you
Second day, this soup was heavenly. By 3rd day hubby was almost licking his plate! I can’t wait for the owo soup recipe. His mum used to make it a lot before she passed, and he misses her- and her owo soup. My own will be fantastic as long as I stick to Dooney’s recipe, I know!
Hi five for you girl. Well done. Here is the link to owo soup http://www.dooneyskitchen.com/2014/03/22/bini-owo-soup/
My mom has always made this soup and I didn’t know it’s the same black soup from Edo state. She’s from Delta state by the way.
She still washes the bitter leaf by hand but she blends the vegetables. I’ll definitely be trying my hands on this soon.
Awwww this brings back memories! My grandma also had all sorts of dark green and brown herbal remedies and she dispensed them with a koboko in one hand…opting out was not an option! Thanks for this Dunni.
Hi Dooney, I’m hoping you can help me out (you’d better!) I’m from Ondo on my dad’s side and for a while I lived with my Grandmum. There are a number of soups she made that I adored and one of them was called black soup but it was made with a dark green powder taken from a dried leaf. The last time I saw it was when my Aunt brought a batch over 16 years ago when all the women in the family were giving birth. Do you have any idea what the leaf is, it wasn’t bitter leaf.
Hi Cee, I think I know what you mean. Is it the Kuka powder perhaps?
It might be uziza leave. I’m Edo (Ishan), we make ours at home with scent leave (guessing that’s effirin), uziza and utazi leave. It turns out really nice. Never used bitterleaf but would try iit.
Oh sure am trying ds out ds weekend….surprise package 4 my dad on his bday
Hi Dooney, I always find your food posts fascinating due to your ingenious tweaks and food twerks, loll.. So can I use snail and assorted meat for this soup and how do I prefer cook them in a way that’ll make them tasty in the soup.. Cheers, Light
yes you can use snails. you add them to the dish the same way you would add beef. with the snail though, boil it separately for a bit, to get rid of the slime, throw away the water, give it a quick rinse, and then add to the soup