BRIXTON RECIPE: Nigerian pepper soup

Talent Mundy-Castle, who runs the specialist African food shop Wa-Zo-Bia Tropical Foods in the Reliance Arcade, shares her recipe for Nigerian pepper soup. You can buy all the ingredients at Wa-Zo-Bia and the money you spend there also supports Talent’s community group, Ladies of Substance, which works with local women to combat gang crime

Ingredients:

• 1 cup crayfish
• 6 cups water
• 3oz. Uziza
• 3oz. Uda (you can get this and the other specialist products from Wa-Zo-Bia in the Reliance Arcade, Brixton Market)
• 2tbsp pepper
• 1oz. Nchawu
• 4lb goat meat or chicken
• 2 cubes stock
• 2tbsp salt

Preparations:

Wash the goat meat or others into a clean pot. Blend the crayfish, uziza and pepper toegther.

Method:

Firstly start with the meat or fresh fish into a clean pot, immediately add all the above memnetioned ingredients with the water and the uda whole (do not blend the uda, because it gets bitter when blended), allow the pepper soup to boil for about 15 minutes then add the stock and nchawu and cook until the soup is ready.

This soup is most popular among Nigerians because it keeps the cold away.

Talent Mundy-Castle’s cookbook is available to buy at Wa-Zo-Bia. See our interview with her here.