Pork and Yam Pepper Soup is a traditional Nigerian recipe for a classic stew of pork, yam and onion in a stock base flavoured with chilli powder, calabash nutmeg, a little Senegal pepper and Aidan fruit, this being one of my wife's sister's traditional recipes. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Nigerian version of: Pork and Yam Pepper Soup.
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Though typically made with farmed pork, I made this version with bush pig which has darker, more flavoursome meat. I was lucky enough to buy leftovers from a bushmeat barbecue. However, the recipe is my sister in law's who is a pork butcher. The recipe uses a lot of traditional spices
Ingredients:
6 pieces of pork meat (about 75g each)
500g yam, peeled and cubed
1 tbsp ground onion
1 uyayak pod [Aidan fruit], broken into three or four large pieces (the sweet and fragrant fruit pod of Tetrapleura tetraptera; substitute 30g palm sugar and a few pounded mange tout)
1 tbsp chilli powder (usually ground and dried Scotch bonnet)
1 tsp ground African Nutmeg/Calabash Nutmeg
1 whole Senegal pepper pod
20 leaves of effirin (African blue basil), washed and shredded
2 Maggi stock cubes (or fish stock cubes)
salt, to taste
Method:
Wash the meat well and season with the onion, salt and 1 tsp of the chilli powder. Place in a pan and cook until the juices released from the meat are almost dried up. Add 2l of water and stir in the ground calabash nutmeg and the remaining chilli powder along with the stock cubes, senegal pepper and the Aidan fruit. Stir in the peeled and cubed yam, bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, for about 60 minutes, or until the meat is tender and the stock has thickened a little.
Add the shredded basil leaves at this point and adjust the seasoning to taste. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Take off the heat then remove the Aidan fruit and the Senegal pepper pod, Serve hot with fufu, pounded yam or semovita (semolina cooked to a thick paste, like fufu).
