Nigerian Fish Soup

Haiku to Fish:
It was never my intention to neglect you
I always had you in mind
Alas, I was preoccupied with meat!

For fish steaks, I prefer catfish w/ the skin on, although the ones I cooked already had the skin peeled off. Tilapia, I’m not too fond of, simply because it has too many bones, unless of course, you get the fillets, but most of the time I get fish, it’s usually the steaks. I do have some whole tilapia in the freezer that I will be cooking soon. It’s going to be a fishy week!
And the beauty of making fish, it really doesn’t take long to cook. You really can’t beat that on a hungry day!
To make fish soup, here’s what you’ll need:
8-10 catfish OR tilapia steaks (I used catfish)
2 large red bell peppers
4 scotch bonnet peppers/ habanero
2 tomatoes
1/2 large red onion
5 cloves garlic
Ginger (size of garlic cloves)
3.5 cups water
3 knorr cubes
1 tbsp Goya Adobo seasoning w/pepper
2 tbsps kosher salt
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup palm oil
*Steaks are simply the fancy schmancy name for cut-up fish.
**Fish soup is of a more watery consistency than meat/chicken stew.
***4 scotch bonnet peppers sounds like a lot, but it’ll get watered down and you want to retain some heat.
1. Rinse and clean fish in cool/room temperature water. Once thoroughly cleaned of any fish gunk, drain & sprinkle salt over fish. Work salt into fish. Cover fish with cool/room temperature water for 20-25 minutes. *This is so the salt seeps into the fish and helps season it somewhat*.
2. Quarter bell peppers, onion and tomatoes. Add to blender w/ scotch bonnet peppers, garlic and ginger along with one cup water. Blend thoroughly till liquefied.
3. Heat oils in pot till smoking hot (literally). Add blended mix carefully. Cover and let cook over medium heat for 45 minutes (check and add 1 cup water every 15-20 minutes, if this is not done, your soup consistency will be too thick).
4. At this point, drain salt water from fish (don’t leave fish in salted water too long, otherwise once the fish is cooked, it’ll be tough!… trust me on this one… trial and error teaches you things!). Around the 30 minute mark, add the knorr cubes and Adobo seasoning to boiling pepper. Stir and let cook another 10 minutes.
5. Add fish, let cook another 10-15 minutes till fish starts to flake. Turn off heat and remove from stove to another cool burner. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
Fish soup is normally served with white rice or eaten with eba.

Enjoy…