Ogbono is botanically known as Irvingia gabonensis (Aubry-Lecomte ex O’Rorke) Baill and is highly demanded due to its immense benefits. The high demand for ogbono is due to its high socioeconomic, nutritional and medicinal values. Different parts of the world have different names for Ogbono for example, it is known as ugiri or ogbono by the Igbo people, biri, by Hausa people, ogwi by the Benin people, mbukpabuyo by the Ibibio and Efik people, oro, apon or aapon by Yoruba, sauvage by French and apioro by the Deltan people. It is a soup commonly eaten in Nigeria and has different preparation according to tribe and desire. For me I love to cook it the Delta way, where my ogbono is loaded with vegetable, okro and protein.
How to Extract Ogbono Seeds
~ Ogbono fruits are picked from the ground near the tree or plucked from the tree.
~ The fruits are allowed to decompose for few days or alternatively the pulp can be peeled, leaving behind the ogbono nuts.
~ The nuts are then cracked open using a hammer.
~ The ogbono seeds are extracted from the nuts.
~ The extracted ogbono seeds are then dried in the sun for few days.
~ Sun-drying the ogbono seeds helps to preserve the seeds for a long time.
~ Dried ogbono seeds can be stored in a container and used for more than a year.
Nutritional Values of Ogbono
-Ogbono fruit is a rich source of potassium, iron, water, energy, protein, carbohydrate, ascorbic acid, sodium, amino acids, dietary fibre, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. The seeds contain fatty acids such as stearic acid, oleic acid, palmitic acid, myristic acid and lauric acid.
Nutritional/Health Benefits
-Its is used in Medicinal Tablets Production: Ogbono contains sticky wax (mucilage) that is useful for making medicinal tablets. The wax acts as a binding agent during tablets production, tablets manufactured with ogbono have increased brittleness and reduced tensile strength when compared to gelatin tablets.
-The back of the ogbono seed can be boiled and used for relieving tooth pain, it can also be decocted and used for treating dysentery and diarrhoea(combined together with palm oil for treating diarrhoea).
-Prevents Constipation: being a rich source of dietary fibre, ogbono can be eaten to improve bowel function and prevent constipation, it also aids easy digestion of food thereby preventing bloating, this is as a result of the high fibre content.
Preparation of Ogbono soup
To prepare my ogbono, i use grinded ogbono, beef, stock fish (okporoko), big dry crayfish, pomo, okro ,vegetables, palm oil, seasoning cube, Cameron pepper, salt to taste. I boil my beef, pomo, and stock fish till its tender. To dissolve the ogbono, I recommend three methods:
-dissolve in hot water then pour in the mixture
-heat up the amount of oil you want to use for about 45sec and pour the ogbono into it and stir till all lumps are dissolved
-after the protein is boiled, take out a large part of the stock and replace with a cup of water, bring to heat up then add the ogbono into it. This is quite tricky and might end up messed up if you aren’t sure. Just continue to stir and break lumps.
My vegetables (ugwu leaves and okro) comes last, and the moment i add this to it, i stir into the soup thoroughly and turn off the cooker immediately, as i don’t want to overcook my vegetables.
Ogbono can be paired with any swallow of your choice like Semo, Eba, starch, akpu, amala, pounded yam, wheat etc.
Till we bring you another beautiful story of our commonly eaten food, from all our writers to you, we say “Keep living healthy and thanks for reading”!!!
Written by: Biobaku Olanrewaju
Images: google images
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