You can eat this vegetable soup alone or paired with white rice or your choice of side.
How to Cook Edikang Ikong Soup
Edikang Ikong is a vegetable soup variant owned by people from Southern Nigeria, specifically Cross River State. The vegetables, which are a combination of pumpkin leaves (ugwu) and malabar spinach (water leaf) are cooked in a pepper mix with proteins, dried cod, cow skin cuts, and dried shrimp.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs goat meat cuts
- 3 lbs cow leg cuts
- 1 1/2 lbs beef tripe
- 3 lbs of chopped spinach
- African basil or regular basil chopped
- 1 round catfish
- 1/2 cup of palm oil
- 1 scotch bonnet optional
- 1 large onion chopped
- 3 Tbsp dry crayfish
- 10-15 pieces of dry shrimp
- 2 pieces of stock fish pieces
- Beef bouillon to taste
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Rinse your meats, add in the goat meats into a large pot, if you have a pressure cooker, you can use that for cooking the cow leg and beef tripe. If not, add the cow leg and beef tripe to the goat meats. Add in the stock fish pieces, toss in the onions, season with salt and beef bouillon. Steam for 10 minutes.
- Add in a cup of water and keep cooking for 15 minutes, do not cover the pot tightly to aid reduction of the liquid content.
- Debone your dry fish, rinse with some salt and set aside. Prep your vegetables (spinach and scent leaves) by rinsing and squeezing most of the water out of them and set aside.
- In the meats, add in your chopped scotch bonnet. If you used the dry version of scent leaves, you should add it in now as it takes time to tenderize.
- Add in palm oil, dry fish and dry shrimp. Keep on cooking for another 10 minutes.
- Go in with your chopped vegetables , cover the pot and let cook for 15 minutes, combine properly, adjust salt and seasoning, cook for another 10 minutes and turn off heat. Serve hot.