How to make Abak Atama Soup

Abak Atama Soup is made from palm fruit juice and Atama leaves. Palm fruit as a base for soup is quite common in the south east and delta regions of Nigeria. I also found out that in Ghana, Cameroun, and Cote d’Ivoire the use of palm fruit sauce is common. You find canned  palm fruit sauce  in shops these days.
One of the food items on my last month trip to Calabar was Eyop (palm fruit). The ones from the Watt market in Calabar are so fresh compared to the ones we find in Lagos and they are cheap! Trust me I chartered quite some quantity to make at least six pots of soup. All I did was wash and parboil for 5 mins, cool and freeze. Actually if you freeze fresh palm fruit without parboiling the oil/ soup sticky to the tongue .

Atama is a vegetable . Most ‘Calabar ‘ women in the market know this.
This is what brings the characteristic aroma to the soup coupled with uyayak, an aromatic spice.

Abak on the other hand is the palm fruit sauce, so the name of the soup is derived from both the sauce and the vegetable you add, so naturally there many types of Abak.
One thing I can promise with Abak Atama soup  is that you can hardly go wrong with the end result. If you happen to end up with some palm fruit sauce that will not thicken easily,just sprinkle some Egusi in it. Bingo, your soup gets thick.If you are on a weight reduction diet you don’t want to make this a daily meal.

 
But again eating is all about variety in controlled portions. Enjoy this soup which is quite similar to Banga  from the Delta region. Inyang Henshaw a popular high life music maestro had sang about Abak and ayan ekpang as being a pair made to be inseparable. And I do agree with him. Of course you can have Abak Atama soup with pounded yam or eba or even rice.

Recipe for Abak Atama Soup

1 big derica cup Palm fruit
1 medium bunch Atama( shredded very finely)
8 pieces Beef
8 pieces Pomo
1 cup Periwinkle (in shell)
4 medium pieces Crab
1 stock fish head
1 medium size smoked fish
1/2 cup smoked prawn
1/2 piece Uyayak
1 table spoon dry Pepper
2 tablets crayfish seasoning
1 beef seasoning( to boil meat)
Salt to taste

Method
1, Boil the Eyop (palm fruit)  for about 25 minutes
2, Pound to separate the flesh from the nut. This takes some experience else you might end up breaking up all the nuts. You don’t hit the fruit too hard

3, Pour about 11/2 bottles of water( 1.5 liters) into the palm fruit and using your hand squeeze out the juice from the pulp
4, Sieve the  juice  into a pot and set aside
5,Season the beef with seasoning, salt, and some dry pepper and steam till half cooked. The rest of the cooking will be completed when cooking the soup.
6, Pour beef into pot of palm fruit sauce and bring to boil

7, Add the stock fish head, Pomo(cow skin), periwinkle , smoked prawn and smoked fish
8, Add the Uyayak, dry pepper ground crayfish, seasoning and salt to taste
9, Cook until it starts to thicken and add your Atama.

10, Add salt to taste and cook until soup thickens to the desired consistency( just like Afia Efere or ofe nasala)
11, Serve with pounded yam ,rice or Eba