I Entered Kitchen for Our Lunch and My Wife Loved What She Saw.

How is everyone doing? I trust all is well. I am doing fine. Today, I am excited to share a beloved Nigerian dish - a combination of ugu leaf or pumpkin leaf with Semovita. I am in Sierra Leone, I left my culture and tradition in Nigeria but not this particular food which I really cherish. Let me explain how this palatable dish was prepared in a foreign land and my wife’s reaction when I told her that I will prepare lunch.

In the first picture, you will notice that our ugu leaf is directed in a way that it grows above the veranda, on the third floor of our storey building. This climbing plant was directed from the ground to that floor. The seed was given to us by another Nigerian here in Sierra Leone. Because of the technic applied to direct it to where we are on the third floor, we do not need to go down to harvest, it is right there in our veranda.

1.Collecting and cutting of the Leaf:
For Ugu leaf to really test fine, one needs to combine it with either spinach or okra. Fortunately enough for me, I have spinach in our veranda garden, this was also collected as you can see on the attached picture. I had to pick the leaves and clean them. To achieve a good result in preparing ugu leaf, one has to know how to cut the vegetable with a cutting board. This is one of the difficult stages in preparing the dish. I must say that I was well trained in this, so there is no cause for alarm. The attached picture shows me in action.

2.Ingredients Used:
After getting the leaves cut, I prepared two catfish that weight about ten kilogram, half a cup of fresh pepper (depending on your choice), two ONGA Maggi, one tea spoon of curry powder, 4 table spoon of red oil and four balls of onion. Please remember that there are other ingredients that can be added, I used what I have. Salt is added according to ones choice of taste.

3.Cooking process:
There are deferent ways to cook ugu leaf and still have it wonderful taste, I will only comment on how I prepared mine. To archive my desired result, which is to prevent the fresh catfish from scattering in the soup, I needed to add ingredients to it and steam it separately. The spinach is fried with the red oil for about one minute, then the water that was used in steaming the fish is added, (the quantity of water should depend on the quantity of ugu that one is preparing) the rule here is that the soup should not be too watery. When I followed the steps outlined, the outcome was as seen on the picture. My wife was excited and curious to taste it, when she does, I was given credit for the work done.

4.**How to Eat. **
Ugu leaf soup can be used in eating many things, like plantain, rice, garri, fufu etc. In this post, I used semovita, which is very easy to prepare. I put one cup of water in a pot, when it boils, I turned the semovita gradually into it and stir it until it gives the required texture. That entirely depends on how individual wants it. Some like it strong while others prefer a soft texture. Some use spoon while others like me use hand to roll it, and instead of chewing it, I like it swallowed. Thank you for taking your time to go through my post. Please enjoy the food you like most.

All the pictures were taken from my tecno spark 10 phone.