Okro Soup
This okro soup with palm oil is spicy, packed with flavour, and best eaten hot with akple or banku.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons palm oil
- momoni optional
- 1 medium onion chopped or blended
- 1 medium tomato blended
- habaneros, kpakposhito (green Pettie belles)or red Pettie belles blended
- 2 tablespoons smoked shrimp powder
- 3 small dried herrings with bones removed
- 4 medium crabs cleaned
- ½ medium smoked mackerel divided into smaller chunks
- handful clams without shell and cleaned
- shrimp fresh or dried, peeled and deveined
- 6 medium fingers okro grated or chopped
Instructions
- Heat the palm oil and fry the momoni making sure to break it down into smaller bits in the oil as you fry it. This should take about a minute.
- Add onions and fry them for about 2 minutes.
- Add blended tomatoes, scotch bonnets or kpakposhito and shrimp powder and cook for about 2 minutes.
- Add crabs and then dried herring, and then the clams. Add enough water to just about cover the ingredients and allow to simmer for another 10 minutes.
- In a separate pan, add 2 tablespoons of water to the grated okro and cook for about 1 min. This is mainly to tease out the slime without having to overcook it in the stew base. See notes 2.
- Add the fresh shrimp and mackerel to the stew. Avoid over stirring especially if the smoked mackerel is not firm.
- Add okro from the other pan to the soup and mix through, letting it cook for a further 3 min. Turn off heat but do not cover soup completely with the lid.
- Turn off the heat but do not cover the soup completely with the lid.
- Serve with banku or kenkey or Gari
Video
Notes
- If you are using fresh shrimp then add them when you are just about to add the okro so that they do not overcook. If you are using dried shrimp, however, then add that after you add the tomatoes as they can be a bit tough. You can also soak them in hot water before using them.
- If you are using frozen okro that has already been precooked, you can ignore this step.