Nigeria is one of the countries rich with different tribal or traditional meals. In my last few posts, I wrote on meals from the Eastern part of the country and today, I will be writing from the Western side. The meal we tried out last week was Efo riro. Efo meaning Green leafy vegetables and Riro meaning to stir. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that Efo Riro simply means "Stirred leafy vegetable".
Efo Riro is a native soup of the Yorubas (West Nigeria) rich with vitamins. The vegetables used to cook this soup are Efo Shoko and Efo Tete. I first learnt how to cook this soup from a very close friend of mine back in my Nd days and as a learner, she confessed that it was actually nice.
Ingredients for Efo Riro.
For this my dish, I will be using;
Assorted meat
Smoked fish
Dry fish
Stock fish
20 cl palm oil
500g Efo Shoko
5 tatashe peppers
2 tablespoons ground crayfish
2 red onions
2 small stock cubes
2 tablespoons locust beans (iru)
Salt & Habanero / Scotch Bonnet peppers
The following are the two vegetables that can be used in cooking Efo Riro. You can find them in a local Nigerian market.
Feel free to free style your choice of meat. You can add as many as possible if not all.
Preparation....
If you are using the hard stock fish, soak it for a few hours. Soak the dry fish till soft and debone.
Cut the leafy vegetables (If requested they cut it for me at the market).
Grind the tatashe till coarse.
Dice the onions and grind the crayfish (if you have the none grinded one).
Cooking Directions
Start cooking the dry fish and stockfish.
When almost done, add beef, stock cubes and some of the onions and cook till all the meat and fish are well done. Set these aside.
(This soup should have as little water as possible so add small amounts of water at a time and top it up as you cook).
In another pot, pour the palm oil and heat it up. Once hot, add the remaining onions.
Fry the peppers till there's no more water in it. This should take about 15-20 minutes.
Add the locust beans, crayfish, and stir well.
Add the cooked meat and fish, stir very well.
Add the vegetables, stir very well, cover and once it heats up again, add salt to taste and take the pot off the stove.
Easy to make right?
Well I served mine Semo not so hard and yes, I finally learnt how to make semo. Probably next time, I will drop a video.
Till next time, keep on buzzing....
If you are going to try this, kindly leave a comment let's know how it turned out.