🇳🇬 Nigeria · South-south Nigeria (Efik, Ibibio: Cross River, Akwa Ibom)
Otong soup (Efik okra soup)Efik okra soup
The Efik and Ibibio okra soup: okra cooked with assorted meats and fish, crayfish, bonnet pepper, onion and palm oil, typically with leafy greens such as ugu.
Origin and history
Otong is the Efik name of the okra soup cooked by the Efik and Ibibio of the south-south of Nigeria, in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states. It sits beside better-known Efik and Ibibio soups such as edikang ikong and afang, and, like them, is rich in leaves, fish and assorted meats.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 300 g10.5 oz fresh okra, half finely chopped, half pounded or blended coarsely
- 150 g5 oz ugu (fluted pumpkin leaf; ikong ubong), shredded; spinach if unavailable
- 1/2 cup1/2 cup, loosely packed uziza leaves, chopped; optional
- 500 g1.1 lb assorted meat, beef, tripe, goat; cooked tender
- 250 g9 oz assorted fish, smoked or dried fish, stockfish, fresh fish
- 60 ml1/4 cup red palm oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 tbsp ground dried crayfish
- 1-2 bonnet (scotch bonnet) peppers, ground, to taste
- 750 ml3 cups meat stock
- salt and stock cube, to taste
Method
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1. Cook the meat and stockfish with the onion, salt and a stock cube until tender, and keep the stock.
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2. Bring the stock to a boil in a clean pot and add the crayfish, bonnet pepper, meat and fish. Simmer 10 minutes.
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3. Stir in the okra, both the chopped and the pounded.
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4. Add the palm oil, the ugu and the uziza, in that order.
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5. Simmer on medium heat 5 to 7 minutes, no longer, so the leaves stay green and the okra keeps a slight bite.
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6. Taste for salt and heat, switch off the heat, and leave the lid open for a minute so the greens do not carry on cooking. Serve hot.
Notes
- Otong is the okra soup of the Efik and Ibibio of Cross River and Akwa Ibom. Where the parent okra soup is built on okra and stock, otong is defined by plenty of ugu and uziza leaves cooked with the okra, and a generous meat and fish mix. It is closer to the Igbo style, with palm oil and no tomato, and not like Yoruba ila alasepo.
- Ugu (fluted pumpkin leaf) is sold frozen at African groceries; spinach is the usual substitute and gives a milder flavour. Uziza leaf (Piper guineense) has a peppery, slightly camphor taste; use a little extra bonnet pepper and a pinch of black pepper with basil if you cannot find it.
- A traditional touch is to pound part of the okra for body; a blender on pulse does the same. Some cooks add akaun (potash) to thicken it further.
- It is eaten with fufu, eba (garri), pounded yam or semo, and in Efik homes sometimes with ayan ekpang (a cassava and cocoyam dish).
- The sources for otong are modest in number; check the proportions against your own taste, as home cooks in Calabar and Uyo vary the fish and the leaves.
Adapted from 9jaFoodie, Otong soup, Afrifood Network, Otong soup, and Google Arts & Culture, Six Savoury and Sumptuous Soups.
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