You may know about Ukwa from the roasted version. It is a nutty snack commonly eaten in the Eastern part of Nigeria. I find that the roasted version is something of an acquired taste. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. I have known about Ukwa ever since my late teenage years and I never knew it could be eaten savoury. I just thought like groundnut, it is roasted from raw and eaten. of course now I know you cna cook with raw groundnuts, one of my favourite soups, groundnut soup is made by groudning raw groundnuts with uziza seeds. If you haven’t tried it yet, I implore you to do, you will be pleasantly surprised. Recipe can be found HERE. In place of raw groundnuts, you cna make this with unsweetened organic peanut butter.
Now, back to Ukwa. I was at a friend’s house where I was served the roasted version and her mum told me, it could also be made into a pottage using the raw nuts, just the way you cook beans. She gave me a quick recipe and I was really intrigued. My mum was coming and I made sure she brought some for raw Ukwa for me. I made this with quite a bit of trepidation, but I must say, I enjoyed the end results. Savoury Ukwa will definitely be making a comeback in my kitchen. Think of beans, and just replace with the raw Ukwa. I will be uploading a picture of the raw Ukwa this evening. Getting bored of beans, introduce variety into your diet by making Ukwa. Italso has many nutritional benefits
You will need
2 – 3 cups of Ukwa – depending on how many people you are feeding
1 cup fo shredded smoked fish
Palm oil
Salt
Seasoning cubes
2 – 3 pieces of ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habenro epper
How To
I will like to start by saying, I wasn’t warned that ukwa takes forever to cook. I will be boiling it in a pressure pot from hencefort.
1. Rinse the Ukwa, add water to the pot to cook it. 
then you add shredded smoked fish. Dooney’s Kitchen tip: the idea to boil with shredded smoked fish came from the fact that i assumed ukwa would taste bland when boiled on its own, and I wanted to amp up the flavour by using smoked fish
2. Place the pot on high heat and cook the ukwa softens, jsut like you would with beans. I can’t remember how long this took, I only remember that for the amount I was making, it did not cook as fast as I thought.
3. Once it has softened sufficiently, check the water level. If it has absorbed all the water, add a little more, just enough to top it, then add fresh pepper, palm oil, salt and 1 seasoning cube. Stir and just let it cook, till the palm oil and pepper mesh with the flavour of the Ukwa and the pale cream colour has changed to a brown shade of yellow. You may wish to mash it slightly with a wooden spoon to make it more creamy like beans pottage.
………………….and that’s your Ukwa. The aroma and the taste, especially with the smoked fish is just amazing. If you don’t have smoked fish, you can use crayfish.
You can go fancy by serving it in a cored out red or green bell pepper.
Great job as always. Brings back memories of picking sand/grit out of the ukwa seeds. Ukwa is my favorite and has always been an expensive protein. It also reduces in quantity after cooking. So there was never enough for us growing up (seven kids plus house helps plus aunties plus uncles, etc). Little wonder that it’s my standard request from home. The shortcut to the length of cooking ukwa is akanwu (potash). That shortens the cooking time and I think adds it’s own flavor. A variation is to cook the ukwa just by itself, then sieve out and reserve the stock when the ukwa is cooked. Then using palm oil, prepare a sauce with pepper, crayfish, seasoning cube and your dry fish and mix the sauce with the ukwa. Serve the ukwa with the ukwa stock (mmili ukwa) as a soup to go with it. Simply delicious.
Thank you Vivian, wow that was such a large family, i can imagine it must have been fun and bittersweet growing up. Thank you for the tip about potash. Now I can make this again without groaning at the time it takes. Ooooh, love the other version, just like my mum used to do with beans too. Same thing. Thanks for that, i really appreciate
Vivian beat me to the potash. But that helps too. You do have to rinse it out after boiling with the potash for some time and replace with fresh water. Also adding corn or ugba to it also gives it an extra oomph. lol. But great job though. You have inspired me to cook it now as I haven’t done so in a while
Wow, now I have extra options to make ukwa again. With corn or ugba, corrrrrrrect. I hope you do make it, I would love to see how you make yours
I have used both and either one of them. My mum sometimes adds prawns or chicken pieces too. Delish
Hmmmmn, yum
I cannot believe that this was your first time of cooking this delicacy, Dooney. This is the favorite of many and all the suggestions given are very true. Also, if you are not careful with preserving the shelled ones, they may harden and cooking them to soften becomes nearly impossible even with potash. They are at their best, fresh shelled and cooked or dried and preserved. As a child, I did my share of washing the Ukwa in the stream, using my feet to marsh/wash to remove the grime/slime that the Ukwa comes in. The seed is like sour sop but the bigger version. Thank you for treating us to this special meal. I believe it is in season now, I am sending request for some. Haha.
Aaaaaw, lvoely to read your comment Mtee, and I am glad I was able to rekindle memories. Please let me know when you when you make yours
Hi dooney, off topic question please how do you store your smoked fish?
I store mine in the freezer
thank you. I was wondering if it’d lose it flavor that way, but i guess that’s the only reasonable alternative
Yes it is
dunni u can also use stocfish and sprinkle shredded uGu leaves or bitterleaf a la anambra style
Thank you for the tips. I have learnt so much form you guys, ever since I put this up. Thanks again
wow..my best food ever.. you can also shorten your cooking time by soaking the night b4 you cook it and well you’ve said it already .. use a pressure cooker! also dooney, i dunno if you’ve noticed, adding salt before the ukwa gets soft can ‘harden’ it.. or does it just happen to my pot *** tinking 🙁
I keep learning more and more with this Ukwa. Thanks for that. As with beans, I also don’t add salt while boiling it. It can’t be your pot. Lol