Hulda
Nkui Soup is a popular traditional dish from West Cameroon. It is a sticky soup obtained from the bark of the Nkui plant which is also called Triumfetta Pentandra. Nkui is mostly cooked to feed mothers after birth. This soup has the ability to clean the mother’s stomach, increase breast milk, and help her recover from labour. It also has the benefit of stimulating the appetite and facilitating digestion.
This soup is easy to cook once the Nkui spices (a combination of more than ten different spices) are ready. You can either prepare the spices yourself which is time-consuming or you can buy a ready-made Nkui spice mixture from the store.
To cook the Nkui, you need the sticky extraction by soaking the bark of the Nkui plant in hot water for about an hour, then crushing them with your hands in that water. After that, you mix the Nkui spice powder with limestone, water, habanero pepper, and salt. Then you add it to the sticky extraction and beat them together thoroughly with your hands.
How to cook Nkui from Cameroon?
Ingredients
- Dry Nkui plant (or fresh one)
- 4 tbsp Nkui spices
- 10 g limestone
- 1 habanero (hot) pepper
- salt to taste
- 1 l hot water
Instructions
- Wash the bark of the Nkui plant and place it into a big bowl or pot.
- Pour hot water on it and cover. Let it rest for about an hour.
- Meanwhile, put the Nkui spices powder into a small bowl, add salt, limestone, ground pepper and about 200ml of lukewarm water. Then stir the mixture until well combined.
- After the one hour resting time, crush the bark of the Nkui in its water with your hands continually until you obtain a sticky liquid. You can stop crushing when you realise that the bark is not sticky anymore.
- Throw the bark away, then clean the sticky liquid by removing all the bark's filaments to discard.
- Add the above spices mixture into the sticky liquid and beat thoroughly until well combined. Taste and add more salt if necessary.
- The soup is ready and can be served with corn couscous as well as fried spinach.
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