It started with Pepper Soup
The inspiration for The Fufu Café doesn’t come from the doughy starch that is very popular in West Africa, but from a famous soup that usually accompanies it: Pepper Soup.
My grandmother and the women before her are from the Bassa tribe in Liberia. We’re known for our delicious soups, and we’re known for being fufu connoisseurs. If other tribes claim this title, they’re wrong—end of story.
Okay, back to my grandmother. She taught me how to make fufu from scratch, from fermenting raw cassava, then sifting it by hand, slow cooking over wood, and finally kneading with a wooden fufu stick.
However, the soup process was the most exciting part of making fufu and pepper soup. Palm Butter and Pepper Soup were and still are my favorite soups to accompany fufu.
Pepper Soup is a rich stock-based soup, but this isn’t your typical stock base. Pepper Soup is an intricate, multi-layered process of organizing flavors and presenting them in a story that takes place in your memory the first time you swallow.
Yes, fufu is supposed to be swallowed with soup, not chewed. (Please do chew your meats and seafood though lol)
When in an African home, and you get asked if you swallow, they’re asking if you like to eat fufu. Say yes for fufu and no for rice instead.
So anyway, back home in Liberia, my grandma and I made different variations of Fufu and Soup. After immigrating to the United States, and years later, when my grandmother passed away, The Fufu Café had to come back to pay respect to the woman who taught me village cooking. I’ve lived in the African diaspora in the United States, so my fufu and soup meals have been Americanized. This is the café or fusion part of The Fufu Café.
So now that you know why I call it The Fufu Cafe, I present to you, my grandma’s inspired but definitely Americanized Bassa Pepper Soup.
Ingredients
Assorted meats (chicken and/or beef, lamb, goat, etc.)
Smoked/dried fish and shrimp (bony, smoked river fish, dried shrimp)
Fresh seafood (fish, shrimp, clams, etc.)
2 Maggi cubes
Assorted spices & herbs (1 tsp of each): dried basil, curry powder, garam masala, salt, black pepper
1 small or medium onion
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
1 handful eggplants and/or bitterballs
⅓ - ½ cup okra
1 cup fresh spinach or potato greens
Desired amount of peppers (I used 3 pods of habaneros)
2-3 tbsp sesame seeds (I like to use both black and white sesame seeds)
4-6 tbsp tomato sauce or 1-2 tbsp tomato paste
4-5 cups stock or water
A wedge of lime or lemon
I made boxed plantain fufu in a microwave, and I feel very little shame because I lived in Colorado when I wrote this recipe, so please don’t judge me if you’ve never lived in the Rockies and searched for authentic Liberian food. Thank you very much. (I’m ducking from Liberians who live in New York, Minnesota, Texas, and Pennsylvania)
Method
*Wash your hands and all ingredients before cooking*
Place an empty soup pot on the stovetop, on the low heat setting. Slowly layer in meat and smoked/dried seafood. Don’t add any liquid yet; the meats will slowly cook without water as you layer in more ingredients (2-3 minutes).
Layer in spices, herbs, seasonings, and peppers.
Add enough (about 4 cups) water/stock to entirely cover the meats in the pot. Cover and boil for 15 minutes on medium heat.
Boil eggplants/bitterballs and okra together in a separate pot, on low heat for 20 minutes or until soft.
While the pots are boiling, soak (1 cup water), peel and debone the bony fish in a bowl. Leave the water side for later.
Prepare the fufu according to the box instructions. Again, I’m not sorry lol! Ok, maybe I am, just a little.
Remove meat and dried/smoked seafood from the soup pot.
Add bony fish to the soup pot, stir.
Add fresh seafood.
Strain the bony water into the soup pot (from step 5). This will give the soup a second layer of flavor, and it adds more liquid to the soup. Cover and boil for 5 minutes.
Remove the fresh seafood from the soup pot. Peel smoked/dried fish and shrimp if needed.
Add smoked/dried seafood to the pot, after peeling and removing necessary bones.
Add tomato paste/sauce to the soup. Add 1 tbspp peanut butter if you want a thicker soup. I’m preparing mine village style.
Taste and add more seasoning and/or broth/water if needed. Cover and boil for another 10-15 minutes.
Strain eggplants and okra (do not waste the water). Steam the spinach or potato greens in the same water from the okra/eggplants for 3-5 minutes.
Toast the sesame seeds on low to medium heat, for 10-20 minutes or until the white sesame seeds are golden brown.
Turn off heat on the soup, take out the peppers and add all the meats and seafood back to the pot.
Mash the peppers and divide in half. Add one half to the soup and mash the other half with the eggplants/okra/bitterballs/spinach/potato greens. This is called du-du. Du-du garnishes and thickens the pepper soup. It also helps with swallowing the fufu.
Blend the sesame seeds or beat with a mortar and pestle. Optional: mix some of the mashed sesame seeds with some of the du-du. Some people like this mixture, some don’t. It’s all about preference here.
Serve and garnish with lemon or lime.
