🇳🇬 Nigeria · South-west Nigeria (Yoruba, Ibadan and Lagos)
GbegiriYoruba bean soup
A smooth, pale orange Yoruba soup of peeled and puréed beans (brown beans or black-eyed peas) with a little palm oil, crayfish and locust beans, eaten with amala and ewedu in the combination called abula.
Origin and history
Gbegiri is a Yoruba bean soup from south-western Nigeria, strongly associated with Ibadan, where amala restaurants serve it with ewedu. Where and when it began is not documented; it is traditional Yoruba food made from the local brown or black-eyed beans, eaten with amala.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 250 g1 1/4 cups brown beans (honey beans) or black-eyed peas, soaked, skins rubbed off
- 500 g1.1 lb assorted beef, shaki (tripe) or smoked turkey, optional, cooked until tender, stock saved
- 60 ml1/4 cup red palm oil, heated gently, not bleached
- 2 tbsp ground crayfish
- 1 to 2 tbsp iru (fermented locust beans, dawadawa), ideally the soft kind, iru woro
- 1/2 to 1 tsp ground dried cayenne pepper, to taste
- 1 onion, for the meat
- salt and seasoning cube, to taste
Method
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1. Soak the beans for an hour or more; rub them between your hands and rinse off the skins, repeating until almost all are gone.
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2. Cook the peeled beans in plenty of water for 30 to 40 minutes (about 15 in a pressure cooker), until they crush to a paste.
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3. While they cook, simmer the meat with onion, salt and a cube until tender, and keep the stock.
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4. Purée the beans with a blender, or whisk them traditionally, adding a little water. Pass the purée through a fine sieve to remove any skin. It should be silky.
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5. Warm the palm oil in a pot for 2 to 3 minutes without smoking, stir in the purée, then add pepper, iru, crayfish and a cube. Add stock or water to a loose consistency.
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6. Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring so it does not catch; it spits and boils over easily. Turn off the heat once it thickens slightly and coats a spoon. It thickens further as it cools.
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7. Season, and serve with the meat on the side or in the soup.
Notes
- Gbegiri is a Yoruba soup of south-west Nigeria, closely tied to Ibadan and Lagos. It is eaten with amala (yam or cassava flour swallow). With ewedu (jute leaf soup) and a pepper stew called obe ata, it makes the plate called abula.
- The swallow is amala, usually lafun (cassava) or amala isu (yam flour); pounded yam or eba also work. Gbegiri is also eaten with rice.
- Peeling the beans thoroughly and sieving are what makes it smooth. Bean flour is a quick substitute: whisk it in cold water and stir into boiling water; it comes out more custard-like.
- Iru is available in African shops; if you cannot find it, use a little miso or a couple of anchovies, which give savoury depth but lose the particular funk. Palm oil can be replaced with a little paprika-tinted oil, but the flavour is lost.
- Keep it looser than you think it should be. Reheat with water.
Adapted from Afrifood Network, Gbegiri soup (beans soup) and Ounje Aladun, Gbegiri (beans soup).
At the festivals
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