Easy Way: How To Prepare Banga Soup

Banga soup, also called “Ofe Akwu”, is a popular indigenous soup from the Niger Delta and the South Eastern parts of Nigeria.

NEWSBREAK reports that the soup is a special sauce made with the rich pulp of palm-nut fruit. It is best served in a clay pot.

Banga soup is often served with ‘starch’, a really glutinous by-product from the processing of cassava, that is a stretchy and chewy, jelly-like mass similar in some respects to Coco de Nata. It can also be served with other cooked starches like pounded yam, rice,  eba (made from cassava meal called garri), amala (made from dried yams or unripe plantains) and whole wheat flour. These starches resemble bread dough (from the first kneading), though much lighter.

To consume them, you pinch off a small ball of the starch, and dip it in the soup, using it to soak up the juices (with finger bowls of water provided, for the new and uninitiated). Banga Soup is referred to as Ofe Akwu where Ofe means Soup / Stew and Akwu means palm fruit and is used mainly as stew for Boiled White Rice.

• Palm fruit extract/Pam fruit thinned concentrate
• Beef
• Fish
• Dry fish
• Ogiri Okpei (Iru)
• alligator pepper
• Onion
• Salt
• Chilli Pepper
• crayfish
• pepper
• periwinkle
• seasoning cube
• Bitter leaves
• Scent leaves

Things You Will Need To Prepare Banga Soup

The following things listed below are the essential equipments you will need to prepare your banga soup without stress.

If you are making use of fresh fish instead of grilled meat, you might not need the oven, grilling rack and baking sheet listed below. But we added those equipments for the benefit of those who might want to try it later.

• Oven
• Grilling rack
• Baking sheet
• Tongs
• Small pot
• Medium pot
• Large pot
• Bowls
• Strainer
• Fine, mesh sieve
• Rubber spatula
• Mortar and pestle

Ingredients For Banga Soup

• 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of palm fruits or 800-gram (28.2-oz) can palm fruit concentrate
• 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of beef, cut into 5 to 7 cm (2.0 to 2.8 in) pieces
• 3 pieces of dried fish (mangala), soaked and deboned
• Scent leaves, washed and sliced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 2 tablespoons (12 g) of crayfish, ground
• 1 small piece of ogiri okpei, ground
• Ground habanero pepper, to taste
• Salt, to taste
• 3 stock cubes, divided

Step By Step Guide On How To Make Banga Soup [Details]