Oha Soup — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

A flavorful traditional Igbo soup made with tender oha leaves, cocoyam paste as thickener, assorted meats and stockfish, known for its distinct earthy flavor and rich aroma.

Ingredients

2 cups oha leaves, shredded
6 cocoyam corms, boiled and pounded
500g assorted beef cuts
200g stockfish, soaked
200g dried fish
1/2 cup palm oil
2 tbsp ground crayfish
3 scotch bonnet peppers, blended
2 seasoning cubes
Salt to taste
1 medium onion, chopped

Instructions

1 Boil the assorted beef with onion, seasoning cubes, and salt for about 40 minutes until tender, adding the soaked stockfish halfway through to cook together.
2 Boil the cocoyam corms until soft, then pound or blend into a smooth paste that will serve as the natural thickener for the soup.
3 Add palm oil, ground crayfish, and blended peppers to the meat stock, stir well, then add the cocoyam paste in small lumps, stirring to dissolve and thicken the soup.
4 Gently fold in the shredded oha leaves and dried fish, simmer for 5 minutes without stirring too much to preserve the leaf texture, then adjust seasoning and serve with pounded yam or fufu.

Did You Know?

Oha leaves can only be hand-picked, never cut with a knife, as the Igbo people believe cutting them with metal will cause the tree to stop producing leaves.