🇳🇬 Nigeria and 🇨🇲 Cameroon · Southern Nigeria (Igbo, Yoruba)
Ogbono soupNigerian wild mango seed soup
A thick, slippery 'draw' soup made from finely ground ogbono (wild mango, Irvingia) seeds cooked with palm oil, assorted meat, dried fish or stockfish and ground crayfish, sometimes with bitterleaf or ugu. Eaten with a swallow.
Origin and history
Ogbono soup comes from the south-east of Nigeria, where the Igbo cook it, and is also a favourite among the Yoruba, who call it apon or obe apon. The wild mango trees that give the seeds grow in the forests of southern Nigeria and Cameroon, and the seeds are sold in markets across the region.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 120 g4 oz (about 1 cup) ground ogbono (wild mango seed, Irvingia), freshly ground if possible
- 600 g1.3 lb assorted meat, beef, shaki (tripe), cow foot or ponmo, in chunks
- 100 g3.5 oz stockfish and dried fish, soaked and picked over
- 1.2 litres5 cups meat stock, from cooking the meat
- 120 ml1/2 cup red palm oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 tbsp ground dried crayfish
- 2-3 scotch bonnet chillies, ground, to taste
- 100 g3.5 oz ugu (fluted pumpkin leaf), spinach or bitterleaf, shredded, optional
- 1-2 stock cubes, optional
- salt, to taste
Method
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1. Cook the meat with half the onion, a stock cube and salt until tender; cook tripe and cow skin first because they take longest. Add the stockfish near the end. Save the stock.
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2. If you start with whole seeds, grind them to a fine powder in a dry spice mill or blender.
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3. Heat the palm oil in a clean, dry pot for 1 to 2 minutes, add the rest of the onion and cook a minute.
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4. Take the pot off the heat, add the ground ogbono and work it into the oil with the back of a spoon until it dissolves into a paste.
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5. Return to low heat and add a ladle of stock. Stir for about a minute until the soup thickens and turns slippery; this is the draw.
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6. Add the remaining stock a little at a time and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often so it does not catch.
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7. Add the meat, fish, crayfish, chilli and salt, cover and simmer 10 minutes more.
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8. Stir in the greens, if using, cook for 1 to 2 minutes and switch off the heat. Serve hot.
Notes
- Ogbono (also apon in Yoruba) is the seed of the wild mango, Irvingia gabonensis. Use a fresh, recently ground batch; old powder loses its draw. Do not fry the ogbono hard in the oil or it burns and the soup will not draw. Less liquid gives a thicker soup.
- It is sold ground and whole at African groceries. There is no true substitute; okra, ground chia or flaxseed give some slime but a different flavour, and this would become a different soup (see okra soup).
- Palm oil gives colour and flavour; a neutral oil works but the taste will be milder. Smoked shrimp can replace crayfish. Ugu can be replaced with spinach; bitterleaf with a little kale or chicory.
- The usual swallow is pounded yam, eba (garri), fufu, amala or semovita.
- Some cooks cook ogbono together with egusi for a mixed soup (see egusi soup). Add uziza and ehuru (calabash nutmeg) for a spicier Igbo-style flavour.
- Leftovers keep for three days in the fridge and thicken as they sit; loosen with a little hot stock.
Adapted from Nigerian Food TV, Nigerian Ogbono Soup (how to cook ogbono), Google Arts & Culture, Six Savoury and Sumptuous Soups, and African Bites, Ogbono soup.
At the festivals
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