Efo Riro

Efo-riro is one of the simplest soups to cook but this soup can easily turn into a crunchy plate of seaweed. Oh yea! Let me explain…

Last week, a friend of mine invited me over to her place. She had been to the market and had efo riro ingredients in her kitchen. I was pretty excited cos I was actually hungry and dint mind waiting for the soup to be ready. But to my surprise she had actually invited me over to teach her how to cook the soup. I thought she was joking until she gave me her reason.

She’s a newly-wed and also working on her culinary skills so she decided to surprise her hubby with a plate of efo-riro but unfortunately it dint turn out the way she had planned. She said her hubby jokingly called it a plate of “crunchy seaweed” cos it was a bit sandy and the efo was lifeless. She said she couldn’t argue or feel bad cos it was true but what she loved was that he still ate the soup and that made her want to get it right the next time.

Honestly, I had a good laugh… I just couldn’t get over the way her hubby described the food. Unfortunately, I actually couldn’t stay to help her cos something came up but I was able to write down the steps before leaving. She called me the next day to say her hubby loved the soup.

So, if you have the same “crunchy seaweed” problem, please do follow the recipe below.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Vegetable (spinach)
• Palm oil
• Crayfish
• Shrimps
• Garlic and onions
• Red bell pepper(tatashe), red chilli pepper(rodo) and tomatoes
• Seasoning
• Meat
• Locust beans (iru)
• Fish

Efo Riro

1. Wash, season and boil the meat, then chop the meat into small pieces and set aside.
2. Blend some red chilli peppers, red bell peppers, onions and garlic then pour the blended mix into a dry pot and boil to get rid of excess water.
3. Wash your choice of vegetable very well den soak in hot water for 3mins, drain then set aside.
4. Pour some palm oil into a dry pot, heat up for about 3mins then pour the pepper into the oil and let it cook for 5mins.
5. Add locust beans, crayfish, shrimps, chopped meat and seasoning. Stir then cook for about 10mins or till you notice that the oil has started to settle on top of the pepper.
6. Lastly, add the vegetable and simmer for about 2mins.

Stewed Fish

1. Wash the fish very well, sprinkle some seasoning on the fish and set aside.
2. Blend some tomatoes, red chilli peppers, red bell peppers, onions and garlic then pour the blended mix into a dry pot and boil to get rid of excess water.
3. Pour some vegetable oil into a dry pot and heat up for 1min. Then pour the blended mix into the pot to cook, add some seasoning and cook for about 8-10mins. Do add some water if the stew is too thick.
4. Add the fish into the pot and cook for 8mins or less. Fish usually takes very little time to cook, so it depends on how you like your fish. Also try not stir the stew when the fish is inside so as not to break the fish into pieces.

Note:

Please rinse the vegetable before blanching…so as not to end up with crunchy efo. And do not bland the efo for more than 5mins so it doesn’t have that lifeless seaweed look.