Not too long ago, my best friend had a craving for catfish pepper soup, so we went looking for fresh catfish to buy and go make ourselves some nice, home cooked pepper soup. We got all the ingredients except for pepper soup spice because I knew there was a bottle of that spice at home. Imagine my great disappointment when we got home and I realized the pepper soup spice was expired! It was a big 'oops' moment (I must confess I was tempted to use the expired spice, thankfully, I didn't give in to the temptation). No one was in the mood to go looking for pepper soup spice again, so I had to go ahead and make the soup with the ingredients we had available. Pepper soup without pepper soup spice!
I followed this simple recipe from Korje, only that one ingredient was missing, and you know the surprising part? Read on to find out.
Ingredients
1 medium catfish, cut
1 clove garlic
1 medium onion,
2 stock cubes
2 fresh pepper, habanero or scotch bonnet
1/2 tsp pepper soup spice
A few scent leaves, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
Method
Dice half the onion and set aside.
Wash the catfish with warm water (and alum, till all the slime is gone, it took me some time!) and place in a pot. Pound or blend the garlic, pepper and half onion. Put this into the pot with the fish. Add stock cubes, diced onions and a little salt.
Add some water to the pot.
Place over heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Add pepper soup spice and scent leaves. Cook for a few more minutes, taste for salt, correct seasoning to your taste.
Ok, so the surprising part was that despite the lack of pepper soup spice, it still tasted really nice! The secret was that I put in a little extra onions and scent leaves, plus 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. We even had cubed yams in ours! It was fun eating it. Plenty fun - so much so that I didn't even remember to take photos until it was all gone.
Images via Korje.com
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