ERU/OKAZI/AFANG SOUP

This vegetable is eaten in most African countries, with each country cooking it differently. In Cameroon we call it eru, Nigeria, they refer to it as okazi or afang soup, depending on whether your from calaba or Igbo.

Am going to share with my Nigerian, Congo, Kenya, and even British friends on how we do it in Cameroon, especially in the southwest province, referring to the BAYANGUI people.


INGRIDIENTS

1 onions
1 clove of garlic
ginger
 1kg beef
1kg canda ( smoked cow skin, kpomo)
 Dry fish of your choice( mbonga fish just gives is a sweeter taste)
pepper
salt
maggi
 1kg fresh, green okazi/eru leaves
2kg spinach/ waterleaf
1cup crayfish
2 cups of palm oil

PREPARATION

wash your canda very clean, and put in a pot, turn on the cooker and place your pot, put water, add salt, chop the onions and add, blend the ginger and garlic, and add, leave your pot to cook for about 30-45min.

wash your meat, and then add into the boiling pot, leave to boil until both meat and canda/kpomo are almost ready, add your dry fish, blend or chop pepper and leave to boil for another 20min, while you wash and chop your spinach.

At this point, check the level of the water, the water should be almost drying off, then you put the spinach, and leave to boil for another 10min, reason why you want the water to be drying off before adding your spinach, is because the spinach or waterleaf turn to produce their own water, and you don't want to end up  with too much water in the pot, which will cause you to keep your pot on the fire for long after adding the spinach because u want the water to dry off, it will end up spoiling your end result.

When your spinach has cooked for about 10min, and if it brought out a lot of water, let it cook for some time to reduce the level of water to half, but if not, and there is not much water in the pot, at this point, add the okazi / eru, using a wooden spoon, mix properly to combine, check your salt and maggi, then leave to boil for 5 min, then add the palm oil, and stir very well, leave to boil for say 5min, and add your crayfish and stir( the more u you stir your pot, the more combine the okazi/eru is to the spinach/waterleaf, thus making your okazi soft.)
 
At this point, take it off the heat and don`t cover your pot immediately, you want your green leaves to stay green.

you can now serve with either waterfufu, Eba, or ground rice.

TIPS:  The right amount of palm oil and spinach will make you okazi soft and tasty. seen some people blend the okazi leaves to make it soft, I think its a no go area.