Nigeria: vegan egusi

We’ve arrived in Nigeria where we are making vegan egusi soup. From our previous stop in East Africa where we visited Tanzania, we crossed the continent to arrive in West Africa where we prepare a true Nigerian classic, egusi. This thick soup or stew gets its characteristic texture and flavour from the ground seeds of the egusi gourd, a small, bitter gourd that looks like a watermelon. Read on to learn more about Nigerian cuisine or jump straight to the recipe to make your own vegan egusi.

Nigerian cuisine

Nigeria on the West African coast boasts a massive population of over 200 million people (similar to Pakistan and Brazil), making it the 6th most populous country in the world and the most populated country in Africa ​[1], [2]​. The country’s massive population is part of the reason it is known as The Giant of Africa ​[2], [3]​. In addition to a very large population, Nigeria is also very diverse, boasting some 370 ethnic groups and 500 languages ​[2]​. With such a large and diverse population, it is no surprise that Nigerian food is full of exciting dishes with tons of local varieties, many of global fame.

In the Nigerian kitchen, you will find many of the same ingredients and dishes you find throughout West Africa. Ingredients include vegetables like peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, and regional leafy greens. Ground nuts, chilis, red palm oil, fermented locust beans (iru), and Maggi cubes are common flavour elements. Meat and offal from different animals, including cow, goat and dried, salted, or fresh fish also find their way to the pot. Rice and starchy plants like cassava, yams, and plantains are everyday staples.

Popular Nigerian dishes

Among the many dishes famous in Nigeria, you will find many rice dishes, such as jollof rice, a spiced rice dish I wrote about during our virtual visit to Senegal, where we prepared thieboudienne, the Senegalese version ​[4]–[7]​. You will also find plenty of deep-fried foods in Nigeria, especially on the streets. Puff-puffs are deep-fried, yeast-risen dough balls ​[8]​, mosa are mashed and fried plantain balls ​[9]​ while akara are savory, deep-fried black-eyed peas fritters, not entirely unlike the bajia we just made for our Tanzanian urojo soup ​[10]​.

The most popular style of Nigerian food is probably thick soups and stews ​[5]–[7]​. You can find a multitude of thick soups across the country, made from almost anything at hand. Very often, they include animal products such as meat, skin, or offal. Often these are cooked for a long time and paired with different vegetables, in particular local leafy greens (which can be very hard to come by here in Canada). Popular soups include afang, a soup made primarily from different leafy greens ​[6]​, pepper soup, which is based on scotch bonnet with added meats ​[6], [7]​, and efo riro, a stew based on spinach or pumpkin leaves, blended peppers, red palm oil and onions ​[6], [7]​. The soups are almost always served with a swallow, something soft and starchy that you don’t have to chew. Nigerian swallows are plentiful and include fufu (pounded cassava), iyan (mashed yam), amala (made from yam skin flour), and eba or garri (made from grated, dried cassava) ​[11]​.

For our virtual visit to Nigeria, I decided to cook vegan egusi, a soup where ground seeds from the egusi gourd play a key role for flavour and texture.

Egusi

Egusi soup or stew is a very popular meal in Nigeria and neighbouring countries like Cameroon, Ghana, and other parts of West Africa ​[12], [13]​. The soup is rich, creamy and full of umami flavours and is a Nigerian staple found equally in homes and food stalls on the street. The stew-like soup is most often served with starches or a swallow, like iyan (mashed yams) ​[13], [14]​, fufu ​[13], [15]​, boiled yam or plantain ​[13]​, rice ​[12], [13], [16]​ or even fried plantain ​[13]​.

The main ingredient in the stew is egusi seeds, ground seeds from a bitter gourd. The seeds are used to add creaminess and help thicken the sauce based on green leaves, tomatoes, and peppers ​[12]–[24]​. The soup is seasoned with scotch bonnet, red palm oil and garlic. The omnivore version includes several types of meat, such as cow or goat meat, cow skin, tripe, and dried or smoked fish, or dried crayfish ​[17]–[21]​.

Egusi soup is typically seasoned with fermented locust beans, known as iru in Nigeria. If this sounds familiar, it might be because we already encountered these fermented seeds (they are not really beans) during our virtual visit to Burkina Faso where they usually go by the name soumbala. If you can’t find these beans, you can omit them or replace them with something that adds umami, such as vegemite or miso (like we did when visiting Senegal).

Vegan egusi

To make vegan egusi soup, the multiple animal ingredients need to be replaced. Since this is an umami-forward dish with fermented locust beans, I decided to use mushrooms as they add both nice flavour and texture. Using mushrooms to replace meat is a popular method to prepare vegan egusi and is used by several sources online ​[14]–[16], [22], [24]​. For some extra umami infusion, you can also grind dried mushrooms to dust and add to the stew ​[15], [16]​. A few vegan egusi recipes call for tofu ​[12], [15]​ or a mix of vegetables ​[14]​ instead of mushrooms.

Egusi seeds

The main ingredient that makes egusi soup is egusi seeds. Egusi is a small, bitter gourd that looks a lot like a small watermelon ​[24]​. These seeds are ground and included in the dish to create a rich and creamy texture with an interesting nuttiness. I bought some ground egusi seeds online but if you can’t find any, grinding some melon seeds or pumpkin seeds would be a good replacement. Or maybe hazelnuts ground into a coarse powder: eaten straight out of the bag, I found the egusi seeds to taste a lot like raw hazelnuts.

Conclusion

The egusi is quite firm, not at all a soup or even a stew. The texture is very creamy and the taste is complex with many contributing, subtle notes. You have a touch of smokiness from the red palm oil, nuttiness from the melon seeds, funkiness from the fermented locust beans, and a lingering heat from the scotch bonnet. Overall a delicious dish.

If this post got you interested in learning more about Nigerian dishes, check out Tomi Makanjuola’s blog, The Vegan Nigerian. It is full of exciting dishes to try and well worth a visit.

Vegan egusi

Print

Vegan egusi

Course dinner, Main Course

Cuisine West Africa

Keyword soup, stew

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 4 servings

Ingredients

• 200 mL egusi seeds see note
• 2 tsp iru (fermented locust beans) or miso, or vegemite
• 100 g fresh spinach or other leafy green
• 150 g mushrooms, e.g. king oyster mushrooms
• ½-1 scotch bonnet or other chili optional
• 3 tbsp red palm oil or canola
• 100 g red onion
• 2 tsp vegetable stock, cube or powder
• 150 g red bell pepper ½ large
• 100 g tomato 1 medium

Instructions

• Slice the mushrooms into desired pieces. I sliced king oyster mushrooms lengthwise into 5 mm thick slices.
• Fry the mushrooms at high temperature to give them a nice browning. Set aside.
• Blend tomatoes and bell pepper to a puree. Set aside.
• Heat red palm oil in a large pot. Saute the onions until translucent.
• Add the whole fermented locust beans.
• Stir in the blended tomatoes and peppers and add the stock cube or powder.
• De-seed the scotch bonnet and add it to the pot.
• Bring to a simmer.
• Prepare the egusi seeds or their replacement. If not already done, grind the seeds to a coarse powder.
• Mix the seeds with enough water to create a white paste.
• Add the water and seed mixture to the pot, stir, and continue to simmer for 30 minutes.
• When the egusi soup has finished cooking, add the mushrooms.
• Coarsely chop the spinach and stir into the pot. Let the spinach wilt.
• Serve with beaten yams, fufu, boiled yam, boiled plantain, or rice.

Notes

I bought some ground egusi seeds online but if you can’t find any, grinding melon seeds or pumpkin seeds would be a good replacement. Hazelnuts could be a good replacement flavour-wise but I think the texture would be different (haven’t tried).

References