Ofe onugbu

the Igbo bitterleaf soup, washed of its bitterness and thickened with pounded cocoyam until a spoon will stand in it

Origin: Enugu, Onitsha & Igboland, Nigeria

From the journey of Oil Palm.

Ofe onugbu is the soup of Igboland and the one an Igbo household is judged on. Onugbu is bitterleaf, Vernonia amygdalina, and as with Cameroonian ndolé the dish begins by removing most of what the plant is named for: the leaves are washed and squeezed through several changes of water until only a trace of bitterness remains. Wash too little and nobody finishes it; wash too much and you have made a generic green soup. The body comes from red palm oil and from cocoyam. Pounded cocoyam paste, dropped into the pot in small lumps that dissolve as it simmers, is the traditional thickener, and it gives a texture no flour can imitate: glossy, heavy, and clinging rather than merely thick. The soup is judged partly on whether it draws properly behind the spoon. It is eaten with a swallow, most often pounded yam or garri, and the eating is done by hand: a piece of the swallow is pinched off, dented with the thumb, and used to scoop. Ofe onugbu appears at every significant Igbo occasion, and it is a common enough test of a cook that it is mentioned in the same breath as the ability to keep a household. Palm oil is not a cooking fat here but a constituent. The soup is orange-brown rather than green, and a version made without it, or made with refined oil, is simply a different and much thinner dish.

Ingredients

  • 250 g bitterleaf (onugbu), fresh or dried, finely shredded
  • 500 g cocoyam corms, or 4 tbsp cocoyam flour (achi or ede)
  • 180 ml red palm oil
  • 600 g assorted beef, cow tripe, and shaki, in small pieces
  • 200 g stockfish, soaked and broken up
  • 150 g smoked fish, boned and flaked
  • 3 tbsp ground crayfish
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 tsp ground dried chilli
  • 2 stock cubes
  • 1 tbsp ogiri or iru (fermented locust bean), optional but traditional
  • 2 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 1.5 litres water

Method

  1. Wash the bitterleaf. Squeeze handfuls of the shredded leaves hard under running water, changing the water repeatedly, then boil for five minutes and drain. Taste: a clear green bitterness should remain, but it should not grip the throat. Repeat if it does. Dried leaves need soaking first and washing more.
  2. Boil the cocoyam corms in their skins until completely soft, about thirty minutes. Peel and pound to a smooth, sticky, lump-free paste. If using cocoyam flour, mix it to a thick paste with a little cold water instead.
  3. Simmer the beef, tripe, and shaki with the onion, one stock cube, and a little salt in 500ml of the water until tender. Tripe and shaki are slow and may want an hour.
  4. Add the stockfish, smoked fish, and the remaining water and bring to a simmer.
  5. Drop the cocoyam paste in in small lumps, roughly a teaspoon at a time, spacing them around the pot. Do not stir for the first ten minutes; let them soften and begin to dissolve on their own.
  6. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally now, until the lumps have melted and the soup has thickened noticeably and turned glossy.
  7. Add the palm oil, ground crayfish, ground chilli, ogiri, and second stock cube. Simmer for a further fifteen minutes so the oil is fully incorporated and the soup takes on its orange-brown colour.
  8. Stir in the washed bitterleaf and cook for a final ten minutes. Taste for salt.
  9. Serve hot with pounded yam, garri, or fufu, and eat with the right hand.

Notes

The washing is the whole first half of the dish and there is no shortcut; frozen pre-washed bitterleaf from an African grocer is the practical route and needs one rinse rather than five. Cocoyam gives the correct draw and texture, and while cocoyam flour is a fair substitute, ordinary flour or cornflour is not and produces a pasty soup. Add the palm oil after the thickener has dissolved, not before, or it sits on top and refuses to combine.

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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