How To Make Banga Soup From Scratch Using Fresh Palm Kernel Fruit

How To Make Banga Soup From Scratch Using Fresh Palm Kernel Fruits

Banga soup PC kc

Introduction

Banga soup is a delicious and flavorful soup from West Africa.

Banga soup is particularly popular in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. It is made with a creamy base from palm fruits, which gives it a rich, nutty flavor.

Recommended: How To Make Delicious Bitterleaf Soup

Banga soup is packed with goodness -  think meat, fish, and sometimes even vegetables, all simmered with aromatic spices. 

Banga soup is a true comfort food. The soup is typically eaten with a doughy or starchy side dish, like starch,  pounded yam or fufu, for scooping up all the flavorful goodness.  

Ingredients For Banga Soup

Here is the ingredients used in making banga soup:

Beef: Beef is used in this banga recipe but you can use an assortment of meat of your choice like tripe, cow leg, or any other beef part of your choice.

Onion: An essential aromatic that boosts the flavor of the soup. You can use any variety – white, yellow, or red.

Cameroon Pepper: This is used to add a bit of heat to the soup. You can use cayenne pepper or red chili flakes if you don’t have Cameroon pepper and if you want less heat, just skip it.

Seafood: Fresh Shrimps, crayfish, catfish, stockfish (dried cod), dry fish, periwinkles. These are some seafood options that you can use. However, in this recipe, I used crayfish, stockfish, and dried fish.

Habanero or scotch bonnet: Either will work

Palm-nut fruit liquid: I used the fresh palm-nut fruit. You can use the palm nut fruit also if you have access to it, or use the canned concentrate.

To Make Palm Fruit Liquid;

Boil the palm kernels until tender

Palm kernels

bring down and turn inside the mortar. Pound the kernels and extract liquid

Pound the palm kernels to extract liquid

Banga spice: A mixture blend of Ataiko and Irugeje in a dry mill. Readily available in market or African stores if you are abroad.

Banga spice leaves(Beletete leaves): You can substitute with dried basil, bitter leaf or dried scent leaves

Oburunbebe stick: You can get this from markets or African stores.

Dried Fish: washed and soaked in hot water. 

Salt: Add salt and seasoning powder or seasoning cubes to taste.

Water/stock: The palm nut concentrate is quite thick, water is needed to loosen it up a bit. I also added the recovered beef stock to boost the taste of the soup. If you don’t have any stock you can add a little more seasoning powder (stock cube).

Procedure For Making Banga Soup

1. Boil the palm kernel fruit for 30 minutes until it becomes soft.

2. Transfer the nuts into a mortar and pound gently, making sure you don’t break the nuts.

3. Pour some hot water over the pounded nuts, squeeze and use a sieve to strain out the extract – do this a couple of times until you get all the extract from the nut. 

4. Pour the extract in a pot and boil until it thickens and the oil rises to the top. 

Notes:

You can use the canned palm nut concentrate in your recipe if you want easier method. This makes the process of making banga little easier and faster than the traditional method which requires making the palm nut extract yourself.

You can boil your meat for more or less than 30 minutes, depending on the meat type you use. Tougher meat cut will cook longer while softer meat cut will cook shorter.