Fisherman’s Soup (Esem Fu lo)
Fisherman's Soup
Welcome to the New Year guys!!!

I decided to kick this year off with one of my favorite soup recipe from the Nigerian cuisine I grew up on this soup lol, my great grand ma used to make it a lot. It originated from the south-south, now there are different variations of this particular soup because of the main ingredient which is cocoyam. The one I am sharing now is from Rivers state it’s quite popular among the Kalabaris and the Okrikans. I hope you enjoy is as much as I do and have a taste of my childhood.

I love seafood a lot and this soup requires a lot of seafood and a lot of spices make sure all your ingredients are fresh, you can use any type of fresh fish you like and today I am using Catfish. Most people dislike catfish because of the slime, you don’t need to worry about that anymore as I will teach you how to clean fresh catfish perfectly.

How to clean the Catfish
This is a foolproof method; it also makes the fish firm which prevents it from breaking while cooking.
You will need:
Some warm water
Lime(‘some lime for the slime)
And a blunt Knife

Method
1.       Gut your fish and wash till clean
2.       Pour warm water on the fish and leave for about 5 minutes
3.       Using a blunt knife scrub off the slime which would not be as liquid anymore because of the warm water.
4.       Cut the lime into two,  use it’s juice to clean the skin of the fish, work one slice at a time.
5.       Rinse with water and set aside.

Ingredients
1 Medium Catfish
2 or more snails
1 cup Periwinkles
1 cup Ngolo
Fresh Bitter leaf
Crayfish
Cocoyam
3 cups of water
1 small onion
2 cooking spoons palm oil
2 stock cube
Salt
8 Habanero pepper
Catfish and Snails

Cocoyam

Periwinkle

Ngolo

Habanero pepper

Bitterleaf

Crayfish


Method

1.       Prepare all your ingredients e.g clean the fish, snails, ngolo and periwinkle, wash the bitter leaf, blend pepper, crayfish and chop onions.

2.       In a pot season fish with half of the pepper, stock cube, salt and onions and set aside.
Seasoned Fish


3.       Peel, wash and cook the cocoyam with just water.
cocoyam prep

4.       Just before the cocoyam is about done, start cooking your fish and snails after 5 mins.
5.       While the fish is cooking, pound the cocoyam in a mortar while it’s still hot so that there will be no lumps.
6.       Add water and palm oil then allow boil.
7.       Now take out the fish and snails so that they don’t get overcooked.
8.       Add cocoyam in lumps in stock in the pot about half of what you have in the mortar then cover the pot and allow to cook. After about 5mins the cocoyam should have dissolved if there are still lumps using your spoon to smoothen them out.
steps 6 to 10

9.       Add the fish, snails, periwinkle, ngolo and the remaining pepper back into the pot and allow to cook for few mins.
10.   Add bitter leaf and cook for a few more minutes and it’s done!!!


Serve with any kind of swallow. Bon appetit!

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2 comments:

flames on ice said...

Mmmmm mm I bet it will taste very yummy!!!! Good job Ella

16 January 2015 at 15:25
Unknown said...

Nicely done chef!

16 January 2015 at 21:33

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