AFRICAN FOOD RECIPE

Before you Make Abacha

All the work of making Abacha goes to preparing the ingredients.

1. Soak the dry fish in cool water and set aside to soften.
2. Soak the abacha for 2 minutes in cool water and put in a sieve to drain.
3. Rinse the stockfish and cook till soft. I use a pressure pot for this. Debone when it is soft.
4. Mix the edible potash with some water, stir and set aside.
5. When the dry fish is soft, clean and debone. Then break into small pieces.
6. Cut one of the onions into tiny pieces and cut the other into rings. 
7. Rinse the leafy vegetable, cut some into tiny pieces, some into thin stripes and leave some leaves whole.
8. Rinse the ukpaka and put in a sieve to drain.
9. Cut some garden egg into tiny pieces and some into thin discs.
10. Crack open the ehu seeds and grind with a spice grinder.
11. Grind/blend/pound the habanero pepper.
12. Melt the palm oil in a sizeable pot over low heat. Note that this is melting not bleaching. The oil should not even be hot. If your palm oil is in liquid form, no need to use heat. Just pour it into a pot.

All the ingredients are ready!

Preparation of Abacha

When mixing the Abacha ingredients, it is important that all the ingredients are well incorporated. Add similar ingredients, stir and add another batch. It is not recommended to add everything all at once and stir because it will be very difficult for you to get a good mix of all the ingredients.

1. Slowly decant the liquid from the edible potash into the palm oil and stir at the same time and you will see the palm oil thicken and turn yellow. Make sure that the edible potash sediments do not go into the pot.
2. Add the stock cubes (crushed), ground ehu, ground crayfish, diced onions, blended habanero pepper, tiny vegetables and mix well.
3. Add the abacha, ukpaka, pieces of dry fish, diced garden eggs and mix well.
4. Taste and only add salt if necessary.
5. You can warm it up a little bit before serving. It can also be served at room temperature.
6. That's it!

Serve with the onion rings, discs of garden eggs, stripes of garden egg leaves and the whole garden egg leaves. Throw in a chilled drink. Palm wine is the best for Abacha.

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