How To Prepare Diaspora Vegetable Soup

I already have a Vegetable Soup recipe for those who live outside Nigeria: Vegetable Soup with Alternative Vegetables. But in that recipe, I only replaced the vegetables used, every other ingredient remained intact: palm oil, stockfish and crayfish. There are still people who live in countries where they can’t buy these Nigerian food ingredients I used in the Vegetable Soup and they wanted more hence the need to create a new recipe that is prepared with no Nigerian-specific ingredient that will cater to authentic Nigerian tastebuds.

So the Diaspora Vegetable Soup was born. As the name shows, this special Vegetable Soup is strictly for those who live outside Nigeria, you do not need any Nigerian-specific ingredient to prepare this vegetable soup. I carefully chose the alternative ingredients such that anywhere you live in the world, even at the end of the world, you will be able to prepare this soup and have a taste of home. I have authentic Igbotic Nigerian tastebuds so I can assure you that though prepared with “oyibo” ingredients, this soup will appeal to your Nigerian tastebuds.

Diaspora Vegetable Soup Ingredients

Read the notes on the ingredients after the list for more information on these ingredients. And watch the video at the end to see these ingredients.

• 2kg Frozen Spinach
• 500g Lamb’s Lettuce (or watercress)
• 1 cup Pretend Palm Oil
• Meat, fish and shellfish:
  • 1.2kg beef
  • 500g Cow tripe (shaki)
  • 600g cod fish
  • 180g shrimps
  • 150g ham bits
• 2 red onions
• 3 seasoning cubes (beef flavour)
• 1 fresh paprika (sweet pepper)
• Any hot and spicy pepper:
  • Cayenne Pepper or
  • Habanero pepper or
  • Scotch bonnet pepper or
  • Black pepper or
  • White pepper
• Salt (to taste)

Notes on the Diaspora Vegetable Soup Ingredients

1. Frozen spinach is the best form of spinach for this. Defrost it naturally that is on your kitchen counter not in a microwave oven, chop it into smaller pieces and press out the excess water. If you can’t buy frozen spinach where you live, use leafy spinach but you need to blanch it first and remove all the water before adding to the soup. I will prepare this recipe again using leafy spinach. But that’s when this lockdown is over.
2. Lamb’s Lettuce is an alternative to water leaves. Its job is to add some nice mild taste to the soup. It’s common in North America. If you are in the UK, you can try water cress. But if you can’t buy these two, you can skip it and add more onions to mask the strong taste of spinach. Some people say they use kale but the kale I can buy where I live is very bitter and fibrous. For that, I do not recommend kale.
3. Pretend palm oil is the oil I pour out after frying tomato stew. The oil is red but not as red as palm oil that’s why I call it pretend palm oil. It’s not good for all Nigerian soups but it’s ok for Vegetable soup and some other Nigerian soups that do not contain starchy thickeners.
4. I highly recommend red onions because it adds a special taste to this soup that helps mask the strong taste of spinach. If you can’t buy red onions where you live, use white onions.
5. I use Knorr cubes (classic flavour), buy any beef flavoured stock cubes.
6. Ham bits add a nice taste to this meal but if you do not eat pork you can use liver or kidney (chopped into small pieces, see video).
7. Cow tripe (shaki, towel) is available anywhere beef is available but if they do not sell the cow intestines where you live (I heard that they throw them away in some countries), you can skip it and replace with more beef.
8. Cod is fresh stockfish. Yes, that fish we call stockfish is dry cod. Since the dry one is not available outside Nigeria (they export the dry one to Africa), use the frozen one which is available in lots of places in the world.
9. Shrimps are basically fresh crayfish but if you do not like the taste of seafood, roast the shrimps in your oven to get crayfish then grind it before adding to the soup.

Directions for preparing Diaspora Vegetable Soup

It’s better to watch me prepare this recipe because if I try to explain in writing all I did and the tricks I applied to get the perfect Vegetable Soup prepared in the diaspora to suit Nigerian tastebuds, pages and page will fill up.

So please get a drink, a snack, relax and watch the video below like a Nollywood movie! lol