Ewedu Egusi Soup

I have always enjoyed the Ewedu, stew mixture anytime I eat in some of my Yoruba friends’  houses. I do understand the economic sense of having the stew cooked separately so you can vary the stew with several other carbohydrate dishes. But the southeastern  girl in me will always want to cook a one pot soup. This is the inspiration for this dish. I  also brought the Ghanaian style of cooking vegetables to bear here, that is boil whole tomato, pepper and onion in the meat and take out to blend. This method just brings the taste together and I  found out that I dint have to boil the sauce forever to get rid of the sour tomato flavor. The result of this soup was so amazing that the pot was practically wiped out a few minutes after the pot came off the fire. I nailed this one, if I do say so my self. Enjoy !

Recipe for Ewedu and Egusi soup ( serves 4

8 pieces Beef
4 pieces Tripe
4 pieces Cow leg
4 medium size Tomato
4 medium size Scotch bonnet pepper( or pepper to taste)
1 medium size Onion( whole)
11/2 cooking spoons finely chopped Ewedu
1 table spoon ground Egusi (previously roasted seeds)
2 cooking spoons Onion ( chopped)
Beef Seasoning to taste
Salt to taste

Method
1, Season meats with onion, pepper, seasoning and salt and steam till cooked.
2, Drop the tomato, onion and fresh pepper whole in the meat pot to cook for about 15 minutes. You may wish to cut the tomato into halves if they are large
3, Take out the vegetables and allow to cool before blending into a very smooth paste
4, Heat the oil till very hot and fry the chopped onion until  brown, turn off the heat. I kind of like the burnt onion flavour in the soup.
5, Pick the Ewedu wash and chop into very tiny shreds. It will require that you chop the vegetable by hitting the vegetable severally with a knife until it is very finely chopped. I will not recommend blending as we don’t really want a paste.
6, When meat is almost cooked, pour in the oil and onion and the blended tomato/ pepper/onion and continue cooking for about 15 minutes. Taste to be sure the sourness of the tomato is off.
7, Correct the seasoning, add the Ewedu and Egusi and cook for about 3 minutes, and soup is ready.
8, Serve hot with ‘ swallow ‘of choice.