How To Make Banga Soup With Ease

I had the pleasure of learning how to make this soup during my NYSC days in Bayelsa State. You see, before my ‘stint’ in Bayelsa, I did not know that it was possible to eat rice with Banga soup.

Every restaurant or ‘food place’ I visited while in Bayelsa sold rice but never sold stew with it. You either eat it with Banga or you don’t eat it at all. So, I had to adjust my Lagos taste buds, learn how to make Banga soup and live like a Bayelsa indigene and I haven’t stopped making it since then. 

See below for the recipe. You can thank me later.

Ingredients 

• Palm fruit extract (This is the most important ingredient)
• Crayfish
• Stockfish
• Chicken/Beef/Turkey/ Fresh fish 
• Bangaspice 
• Pepper (Cameroun Pepper)
• Oburunbebestick also known as Banga stick  
• DriedBeletientien(atama) leaves/ Dried bitter leaves 
• Periwinkles
• Smoked Prawns
• Seasoning cubes
• Salt to taste 

Method:

• Wash your palm fruits thoroughly and put them on fire to cook. 

• Check the palm fruits to be sure they were soft enough, put them in a mortar and pound them with a pestle. This way, you extract the oil from the palm fruits. (These days, most people just use their food processor to make this process better. I still stick to my mortar and pestle though.) Next, boil the extract until there is no oil left. 

• Then, add your already cooked stockfish, pepper, crayfish, salt and seasoning, add the Banga spice. 

• Drop the Obunrubebe stick into the already cooking pot (Obunrubebe is a special Banga spice used to add flavour to the soup). You can keep the stick after this cooking for subsequent use. 

• Make sure you keep checking the Banga soup so it doesn’t become too thick. 

• Add the beletientien leaves, let it boil for some time before you add any other already cooked protein into it. 

• Reduce the heat and let it simmer for a while.  

• Your soup is ready. 

Kindly remember to remove the Banga stick before serving, serve with Starch or Fufu.