White Rice and Soup Recipe

White Rice and Soup Recipe

Nigerians love enjoying their white rice with different types of soup. This is one of the reasons Nigerian delicacies are always unique. I will be listing the different types of soups that can be enjoyed using white rice and at the same time briefly outline how to cook some of it.

Soups For White Rice

Below are some of the soups you can use any time to eat white rice for a very enjoyable experience.

• Vegetable soup
• Banga soup
• Melon soup
• Atama soup
• Afang soup
• Bitter leaf soup

These soups mentioned above are easy to prepare. But to exhaustively talk about how to prepare them, you can click on individual soup to read more on how to prepare each of them. We have already written articles explaining all the processes and ingredients to prepare each of them.

In this particular recipe, I will only explain the process of preparing vegetable (edikan ikong) with waterleaf soup and how it can be used in combination with white rice.

Preparing White Rice

I will start by explaining how to cook white rice. Many of us might already be familiar with the process of cooking white rice, so because of this reason, this section will be very more specific and straight to the point for some of the readers who might not be very familiar with the process.

Ingredients

• Rice
• Salt
• Seasoning cubes (optional)

Method of Preparation 

• Measure the quantity of rice you want to cook
• Wash it and put into a pot
• Add water and boil the content
• After a few minutes of boiling, bring it down and sieve out the water. This will help to remove all the factory preservatives that might have been added to the rice.
• Add water, then boil the rice again.
• Add salt and the seasoning cubes(optional one or two is okay)
• Once the rice tenders, you can sieve out the leftover water in it. If there’s little water in it, you can let it dry off. And the rice is done.

Preparing Vegetable Soup

This section will explain in details how to prepare a yummy vegetable soup which can be used to eat white rice. Edikan Ikong soup is the Ibibio and efik name for vegetable soup. This soup has it’s origin from the southern part of Nigeria.  Specifically from Akwa Ibom and Cross River state. It is a very popular soup in this part of the country, enjoyed by almost all the households.

Ingredients

• Vegetable (Nkong leaves) pumpkin leaves in english
• Waterleaf
• Meat
• Stockfish
• Dried fish
• Crayfish
• Salt
• Pepper
• Periwinkle
• Palm oil(red oil)
• Stock cubes
• Ponmo(cowskin)

Method of Preparation 

Begin by preparing all the ingredients beforehand to make it easier while cooking.

Vegetables and Waterleaf

Wash the vegetables with enough water to remove all the dirt from the garden and the store or market you got them from. You can make use of a blender to blend the vegetables and waterleaf. Blend them seperately.

Alternatively, if you don’t have access to a blender, you can make use of a knife that’s the most popular method and it’s very effective but takes time.

Cut all the vegetables and waterleaf using a sharp kitchen knife and keep them seperately.

Meat

Depending on your meat of choice, wash the meat, put it into a pot, then boil. Add salt, pepper and seasoning cubes to cook your meat. Cook till it tenders to you preference.

Stockfish

You can decide to precook the stockfish or add it directly to the soup. In either case ensure to wash it thoroughly. There is always a marking on the body of the stockfish by the sellers as a method of identification. Ensure to wash it off. You can also add the stockfish to the meat and cook them together, the choice is all yours.

Cooking Vegetable Soup 

To cook a tasty vegetable soup which can be enjoyed with white rice, follow these steps below.

• Add waterleaf to the meat you cooked earlier and boil.
• After a few minutes, add fish, stockfish, crayfish, seasoning cubes, periwinkle, salt, ponmo and pepper.
• Cover the pot and boil for several minutes. Stir the soup for the content to mix well, then add the vegetable leaves.
• After adding the vegetable leaves, you will have to exercise some patience while boiling it. Because it will take more time to soften up as compared to the waterleaf you added previously.
• Taste the vegetable to ensure it has cooked sufficiently and has completely soften. If not continue boiling using medium heat to prevent the leaves from changing color to brown. We still need it looking greenish.
• When the vegetable tenders, add the red oil. Stir well, then cover the pot and boil for some additional minutes.
• Your delicious vegetable soup is ready.

Once done with cooking the vegetable soup, it is now ready to be served with the white rice. Scoup a portion of the soup to a plate of rice and enjoy your meal. Also you can decide to eat them using seperate plates.

Conclusion

White rice can be enjoyed using different Nigerian soups and they all taste great. This post specifically focused on using a combination of vegetable soup with white rice. You can read though how to cook other soups on this blog, which can also be used to eat white rice.