Name: Efo Riro
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Nigeria, West Africa
Ingredients: 600 g spinach or amaranth greens, washed, chopped, and squeezed dry; 3 large red bell peppers, chopped; 2 whole scotch bonnet peppers; 1 medium onion, half blended, half sliced; ¾ cup palm oil; 2 tbsp iru or locust beans; 2 tbsp ground crayfish; 500 g cooked assorted meat, beef, tripe, or goat; 200 g smoked fish, deboned; salt, to taste

Efo Riro

A Yoruba spinach and pepper stew cooked with palm oil, locust beans, crayfish, and assorted meats or fish.

Country

Nigeria

Region

West Africa

Time

60 min

Serves

Level

medium

What to know before you cook

Efo Riro is a rich Yoruba vegetable soup where greens are folded into a pepper base enriched with palm oil, iru, crayfish, and cooked proteins. The magic is to cook the pepper base until it tastes deep, then fold in the greens briefly so they stay lively.

What the dish tastes like

A Yoruba spinach and pepper stew cooked with palm oil, locust beans, crayfish, and assorted meats or fish.

When to cook it

Best for Best for family meals, swallow plates, and rice bowls., with a medium cooking level and about 60 minutes total.

What to serve alongside it

Amala, eba, pounded yam, fufu, boiled rice, or plantain.

Regional lane

South-West and Yoruba table. Amala, ewedu, gbegiri, pepper stews, leafy soups, beans, and market foods from the Yoruba cooking orbit.

Chef watch-outs

Adding too much liquid after the rice goes in.
Stirring too often once the grains should be steaming.
Stopping the base before the pepper, onion, or spice edge has mellowed.

How you know it is ready

The grains should be tender but still distinct, with steam carrying the seasoning upward.
The sauce should coat the spoon and taste rounded, not watery or raw.
Greens should be cooked through but still look alive and glossy.

Pantry lane

palm oil, crayfish, iru or ogiri, scotch bonnet, melon seed

Blend and reduce the peppers

Blend bell peppers, scotch bonnet, and half the onion into a coarse pepper base. Simmer until some water cooks off.

A reduced base keeps the soup rich instead of watery.

Reduce peppers 10:00

Fry the aromatics

Heat palm oil gently, add sliced onion and iru, then fry until fragrant. Stir in the pepper base and crayfish.

Fry base 15:00

Add the proteins

Add cooked meat and smoked fish. Simmer so the pepper sauce coats the proteins and the oil rises slightly.

Simmer 10:00

Fold in the greens

Add squeezed greens in batches, stirring until just wilted and coated. Taste and season with salt.

Do not cook the greens to mush. Efo Riro should still have body.

Wilt greens 05:00

Efo Riro

What to know before you cook

Build the table around Efo Riro

Step-by-step method

Efo Riro

What to know before you cook

Build the table around Efo Riro

Step-by-step method

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