Weeknight Cooking

Egusi Stew

by:
June  4, 2019
5
3 Ratings
Egusi Stew
Photo by Ty Mecham
  • Cook time 40 minutes
  • Serves 8
Author Notes

Excerpted from Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein. Copyright © 2019 by Kwame Onwuachi. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. —Kwame Onwuachi

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 4 cups small onions, diced
  • 2 tablespoons garlic, minced
  • 2 whole tomatoes, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons ginger, minced
  • 1 teaspoon Scotch bonnet pepper, minced
  • 1 cup palm oil
  • 2 cups ground egusi seeds
  • 1 teaspoon crayfish powder
  • 3 Maggi cube
  • 1/4 teaspoon iru
  • 2 quarts chicken stock
  • 1 pound goat shoulder, cubed
  • Kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 2 cups pumpkin leaf or spinach, strained dry
Directions
  1. In a large saucepan, over medium heat, sweat the onion, garlic, tomatoes, ginger, and Scotch bonnet pepper in the palm oil until vegetables are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the egusi seeds and toast in oil for 10 minutes. Add crayfish powder, Maggi, iru, and chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, in a separate pan, over high heat, season the goat meat with salt and sear in canola oil until browned on all sides, about 7 minutes. Add the goat meat to the egusi mixture and simmer together for about an hour, or until the meat is tender. Add the pumpkin leaves during the last 20 minutes of cooking. The sauce should be thick and most of the liquid should have simmered off.
  3. Season to taste with salt. Serve with fufu or pounded yam.
Tags:

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • Amanda Trayes
    Amanda Trayes
  • Lauren Kelley
    Lauren Kelley
  • Azxyimo
    Azxyimo
Kwame Onwuachi

Recipe by: Kwame Onwuachi

By the time he was 27, Kwame Onwuachi had competed on Top Chef, cooked at the White House, and opened and closed one of the most talked-about restaurants in America. His new DC restaurant Kith and Kin opened to critical acclaim last fall, and he has been named a Forbes and Zagat “30 under 30” honoree. With his new book, Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age—while addressing the intersection of race, fame, and food.

Popular on Food52

3 Reviews

Amanda T.
Amanda T. May 12, 2021
Palm oil is high in saturated fat, and its production results in the destruction of some of the world's most biodiverse forests. In fact, the production of palm oil is the main reason orangutans are nearly extinct. What can you use instead of palm oil? Perhaps avocado oil -- ?
 
Lauren K.
Lauren K. May 13, 2021
I wonder if it would help if the recipe noted that this is red palm oil. This is a traditional ingredient in West African cooking, and is different than palm kernel oil that you're (rightly) concerned with. There are many places to read up about the important nuance—here are two I found really useful as as starting point: https://heated.medium.com/the-problems-with-palm-oil-dont-start-with-my-recipes-1ce29f00bb4a and https://thecanadianafrican.com/dont-ask-west-africans-to-stop-cooking-with-palm-oil/
 
Azxyimo
Azxyimo May 8, 2021
This receipe is great and simple. I really enjoyed it. The soup was so flavorful. Definitely would like to try other receipes by Kwame.