Growing up Ogbono Soup was one of my mum’s signature soups we it made very frequently too and I absolutely loved it. We always made it with Ugu leaves or plain. Le hubs prefers to have it without any vegetable in it, and now that I found Uziza, I can’t say i blame him. I found that Uziza could be used in Ogbono through a friend Ms Dooneyrooney. It was such a hit, “Mr Plain Ogbono” could not complain, infact now he cleans the plate.
Ogbono is also called Apon by my yoruba people. The igbo readers on my Facebook page confirmed to me that Uziza is spelt with a “U” not “O”, I used to be confused.

Recipe
1. Ogbono Seeds (a 170g milk tin size)
2. Uziza leaves (a handful of thinly sliced leaves)
3. Assorted Meats (tripe/ponmo/meat)
4. Assorted Fish (smoked catfish / stockfish)
5. 1/8 cup crayfish
6. 1/2 tsp Uziza seeds
7. 5 dried Cameron Pepper
8. Cayenne pepper ( ground dried chilli pepper )
9. 1 tbsp palm oil
10. 1 tbsp ogiri
11. Salt
12. Seasoning cubes

Procedure
Season and cook your meats till tender and reserve the stock. Rinse stock fish, shred catfish. You don’t need to discard the head you can add it to you cooking meats for added flavour.

Grind Ogbono Seeds with crayfish. Blend Cameroon pepper and Uziza together. Rinse Uziza leaves .

Put a clean dry pot on heat and add palm oil, next add the ground Ogbono and stir till all lumps are dissolved now add your meat stock, if you don’t have meat stock add water. The soup starts to thicken and get stretchy.

Now add ground Uziza seeds and Cameroon pepper, and a little cayenne pepper for extra heat -if you can take it-
Taste the soup, if you used stock you may not need to add any more seasoning if not add some. Now add your dissolved -dissolve with water- ogiri, meats and fish and allow to cook for about 15 minutes now add the Uziza leaves and turn off heat after 3 mins.

Enjoy with your favourite staple

SEAFOOD OGBONO

I used a slightly different method to cook this.
I cooked the Ogbono separately adding Ogbono into palm oil and then ground dried pepper , with powdered crayfish and powdered uziza seeds, lastly I added the vegetables (Ugu and Uziza leaves) .
In another larger pot, I cooked the seafood starting with the fish, I cooked with water, onions, seasoning cubes, salt, shredded stockfish, bonga fish.
When the fish was almost done, I added the Carbs and cooked for 3 mins, then I added the Prawns.
It was at this point I poured my cooked Ogbono into the pot of Seafood and I shook it together to mix. I stirred very carefully with a wooden ladle , cooked for 5 mins and lastly I added the periwinkle. Cooked for 1 1/2 mins and turned off the heat.

• Soups, Stews and Sauces