Afang Soup

Afang is a favourite of my husband, and so I was ecstatic when a friend sent the recipe to me in a delightful Maggi cookbook.  It’s rich in vegetables, which is good for digestion although, frankly, I feel all the drying of the afang and boiling of the water leaves/spinach reduces the nutritional content. So try not to cook it for longer than necessary. The recipe and method are from the Maggi notes, with some of the measurements modified by me based on what I estimated the closest metric/universal measurement to be (you won’t find “mudu” or “congo” in any math book – except maybe Nigerian Macmillan’s!).

The soup consists of the core ingredients, i.e. stuff that makes up the actual soup, and the stand-alone ingredients i.e. those that do not dissolve in the soup/stew, (e.g. meat, fish etc) and therefore have calories that are counted separately.

Core Ingredients	Total Calories*
1 medium mudu (10 unpacked cups/300g) shredded, dry Afang leaves	102
5 Small bunches of fresh Water leaves or spinach (~5 cups, 150 g)	35
4 tbsp (1 oz) Ground Crayfish	88
1 tbsp (0.25 Oz) Dry Chili Pepper	17
1 litre Palm Oil	8112
4 Stock Cubes	20
2.5 litres Water	0
Salt to taste	0
Total Calories in one pot of Afang soup	8374
Serving size	1 ladle (~5 tbsp)
Calories per Serving	177

* Most items are from calorie counts verified by the USDA, livestrong.com, fatsecret.com and 
other online calorie databases.

The stand-alone items are broken down below

Stand-Alone Ingredients	Total Calories
8 medium pieces of cooked Beef, ~1oz each	443
1 small Stockfish (cod) head, ~5oz	410
10 medium Cow Skin (aka tripe, pomo), ~0.5 oz each	130
1 medium Smoked fish (Calabar type aka Blue Whiting), 5 oz	115
2 cups (~200g) Periwinkle or sea snail	200

For the method to prepare the soup, click here.

Most of the popular dieting mags/online resources recommend +/- 400 calorie meals, so combine the optional items to the ladle to give you that number. Keep in mind you have not added your swallow (eba et al) yet! For details on Calories in swallow, see here

Soooo……

If I wanted to eat afang soup today, here’s how I’d take it

3/4 ladle of soup – 186 Calories

¼ cup periwinkles (10-20 of them) – 50 Calories

3 pieces of pomo/saki – 39 Calories

½ wrap of iyan – 118 Calories

Total – 393 Calories

Best would be to leave out the swallow all together and increase the soup volume. 
More to come soon!