Banga Soup: The Delta Recipe That Deserves a Place on Every Table
Banga Soup: The Delta Recipe That Deserves a Place on Every Table
If you have never had banga soup, you have an experience ahead of you that I envy. The base is palm nut cream — the whole cream extracted from boiled pounded palm fruits — and nothing else produces its particular combination of richness, sweetness and depth. Thick, deeply aromatic and perfumed with banga spice leaves. Delta Nigeria at its most glorious.
Ingredients (Serves 6)
- 800ml palm nut cream
- 500g assorted fresh meat or catfish
- Banga spice — oburunbebe stick, atama leaves
- Dried crayfish, locust beans
- 2 Jumbo cubes, scotch bonnets, onion, salt
Method
1. Cook the Cream Down
Pour palm nut cream into a pot. Bring to a boil. Add par-cooked meat or fish. It will reduce and thicken significantly over 20 minutes of medium heat.
2. Add Spices and Season
Add oburunbebe stick, atama leaves, crayfish, locust beans, scotch bonnets and Jumbo. Simmer 15 minutes. The soup should be intensely flavoured, thick and brick-orange with a perfume that cannot be replicated by any other combination.
Serve with pounded yam for the authentic Delta experience.
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