Aba's quick palm nut soup

If you don't:

• Have access to a good African / Caribbean grocers
• Know someone who does
• Live in a country where these ingredients are native

... then you may never get the chance to try this delicious dish.

One of the joys of this meal (apart from the taste) is that you can do it all virtually in one large pot and it feeds a few folk. Another is that it can be a soup or stew depending on how long you cook it for. Any way enough waffle, on to the cooking bit ...

Peel and wash the yams, sweet potatoes, coco yams and plantain. Cut the yams into 1/2 inch thick round slices then cut the slices in half across the middle. Cut the sweet potatoes and coco yams into chunks about 2 inches long. Cut the plantain into thirds (roughly).

Chop up a large onion. Rinse and chop up say 1/4 to 1/2 of the small hot peppers. Make sure you remove the seeds and wash your hands after handling. Be warned, these peppers are seriously hot!

Fry the onions and pepper in a bit of vegetable oil (in your very large pot). Add your (optional) meat fish or chicken. I like to use smoked mackerel - about 2 large ones, (a) coz it's already cooked so not much messing about, and (b) coz it adds a nice flavour (well I like it anyway).

Add the tinned palm nut concentrate and at least the same amount of hot water, stir and leave it simmering.

Parboil the yams, sweet potatoes and coco yams for about 5 mins then add them and the plantains to the simmering pot-full of palm nut concentrate etc. (see I said you needed a very large pot!). Don't worry any excess yams, sweet potatoes, coco yams or plantains that don't fit in the pot can be cooked fully and used as a side dish.

Add 1-3 of the remaining hot peppers to the brew depending on how hot you like your food. Pray that they don't burst open during cooking.

Leave the whole lot bubbling away uncovered for a total of at least 30-40 mins - longer if you prefer to have stew rather than soup. Skim any excess oil off the top and discard. Now it's ready to serve to your drooling guests. It's pretty filling and you don't even need to worry if it doesn't all get finished coz it tastes even better the next day!

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil
Meat / fish / chicken (all optional)
Large onion
Tinned palm nut concentrate
Yam ( about half a tuber)
Sweet potatoes (2-4)
Plantains (2-3)
Coco yams (2 -3 optional)
Hot Peppers (1-4)

Palmnut concentrate

Sweet potatoes

Yams

Coco yams

Plantains

Hot peppers