HOW TO PREPARE FRIED OKRO WITH PUMPKIN LEAVES (UGU)

Hey lovelies ❤️
It's your favorite girl @debbie-ese 😍
Welcome to my blog 🤗

Okro/okra soup is a slimy soup that is easy to prepare at an affordable price. It is cooked by every tribe across Nigeria and may not be attributed to a particular tribe like some other soups. The soup can be prepared using fresh or dried okro. There some people who dice the fresh okro into their desired sizes and dry as a way of preserving it, most especially Nigerians/Africans who relocate to countries where it can not be found.

I grew up in a family of six and one of my brothers is different from the rest of us. In the sense that he dislikes certain food when we were growing up such as okro soup, meat, fufu. He dislikes okro because it's slimy, meat because it hangs in between his teeth and fufu because of the fermented odour. In essence what I'm trying to drive at is that there are people who do not like okro soup and may go hungry if there is no other alternative. I'm not one of them anyways - it's one of my favorite.

There are different ways of preparing this soup, there is the Yoruba people's style of cooking the okro plainly and serving it with stew. There are some people that fry their okro, some people add spinach or or ewedu (jute) or bitterleaf or water leaf or pumpkin leaf.

So, the choice is yours to make the style that suits you. Apart from that there are some people who prefer to grate their okro using a grater, some others prefer to cut the okro using knife. In all of these you must ensure that you don't overcook it so as to prevent it from being too soft and lose its freshness.

The ingredients I used in preparing my pot of okro soup are okro, ugu Leaves, okpei (local seasoning), (iru) locust beans, onions, blended scotch bonnet, palm oil, seasoning cubes, dry fish and salt to taste. The ingredients may vary depending on your budget for the soup, you may add meat, chicken, ponmo, shrimps, etc.

How to prepare

• Wash the okro thoroughly in clean water and slice into your desired size

• Wash the ugu Leaves and set aside as well

• Wash the dry fish and place in a pot, add some seasoning cubes, okpei, iru and water, allow it cook for some minutes
  

• When it is done, pour into a bowl and set aside

• Place the pot on medium heat and pour palm oil, when it is heated pour the sliced okro, and fry for some minutes.

• Then add your blended scotch bonnet and onions. Fry for some minutes

• Add the dry fish and the stock that you set aside earlier

• Add salt to taste

• Add your ugu Leaves and stir together. Leave to simmer

• Your soup is ready.

• Serve with any swallow of your choice.

Thank you for your time lovelies.

The post is originally written by me 💕@debbie-ese💕

Your comments, criticism and votes are highly appreciated.