I Was Sidelined by Illness. This Soup Got Me Back in the Kitchen.
Impossibly rich but never heavy or thick, light soup is a Ghanaian favorite, made by gently simmering dried fish or meat in a pot, then briefly adding onion, tomato, ginger and chiles to the broth.
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A good recipe offers a clear set of instructions and a satisfying result. A great one is much more, engaging our imagination with each step, offering a way to replicate a meal after it’s been considered, made, consumed.
But what happens when our ability to cook the food we love suddenly changes? What does it look like to document a sensory experience through an intermediary?
In December 2023, after a lifetime in kitchens working on the line and then developing recipes for cookbooks and magazines, I experienced a health crisis that kept me from cooking for well over a year. During that time, I began to accept the fact that making new recipes — a balance of passive observation and active adjustments — would require careful planning and, because of physical limitations, even more steps in an already complex dance.
The processes I undertook seamlessly before would have to be accomplished much more slowly, and collaboratively. I would have to watch as assistants cooked via my words, acting as more of a passenger than driver, and hand over tasks that had, before my illness, become second nature to me.
Still, I wanted to cook, needed to cook, yearned to rekindle the feeling of the unknown that new dishes so often inspire. I wanted to begin with a familiar dish, but still tap into that sense of adventure.
Since it was nearly spring, I found myself craving for a soup that could shine in any season.
I decided to start with aponkye krakra, as this goat meat soup is called in Twi, one of the many languages spoken in Ghana, where it’s considered a classic. Across West Africa, it is more broadly known as light soup, referring not to color but to the weight of the broth. It parallels Ivorian and Togolese sauce Claire, and I grew up eating the similarly brothy alapa in Lagos, Nigeria.
Impossibly rich but never heavy or thick, traditional light soup is made by steaming dried fish or meat in a pot, and then briefly adding onion, tomato, ginger and chiles to the building broth. These aromatics are fetched from the pot, puréed, strained and returned to keep cooking. Adaptations, like adding beans or red palm oil, are what make the dish feel, to me, both exciting and familiar, a way of preserving and advancing the past.
I wanted to see how far I could push myself to try a new version. But I needed a guide who would help me make sure I stayed true to its essence. So I turned to Afia Amoako, an Asante food enthusiast in Toronto who writes about Ghanaian cuisine on her blog, “Eat With Afia.”
She knows as well as anyone that transforming traditional dishes can court engagement — good and bad — eliciting enthusiasm and outrage in equal measure. Amoako, who follows a plant-based diet and adapts recipes accordingly, credits her mother with instilling a spirit of open-mindedness in her cooking.
She modifies a number of indigenous recipes from Ghana, delving into them at the line level to understand why a certain step or ingredient is included.
“Everyone can have different ways to approach it,” she said, “but there’s a foundational process to making traditional food.”
If you’ve known light soup your whole life, this plant-based version has some surprises — she swaps in mushrooms for the traditional goat (or fish). And, if you’ve never tried it, but yearn for a brothy companion to rice, fufu or fonio, then this is it.
“That was the soup I used to request when I was sick,” Amoako said, and I, too, found myself reaching for it in a time of illness. As my recovery continues to evolve, so does my relationship to light soup. What started as a way back into the kitchen is now part of my repertoire — not quite a remedy, but a necessary balm.
Light Soup With Mushrooms
Impossibly rich but never heavy or thick, light soup is a Ghanaian favorite, made by gently simmering dried fish or meat in a pot, then briefly adding onion, tomato, ginger and chiles to the broth. This version replaces the protein with mushrooms and is endlessly adaptable. You can add any summer vegetable of your choice, such as baby potatoes, spinach, squash or zucchini. If you prefer to add fish, toss in some chunks of a simple white fish at the end of the cooking process. The choice is really yours.
Recipe from Afia Amoako
Adapted by Yewande Komolafe
Yield: 4 servings
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
- 1 ounce/1 heaped cup dried mushrooms, such as shiitake, porcini or portobello
- 3 large plum tomatoes, halved
- 1 medium red or yellow onion, peeled and quartered
- 1 Scotch bonnet chile, stem off
- 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, scrubbed and halved
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon bouillon, such as Better Than Bouillion paste, or use light miso (optional)
- 2 cups mushrooms (oyster or shiitake), or use 4 (4-ounce) fish fillets, such as tilapia, catfish or cod, skin on or off, cut into 2-inch cubes
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (preferably Diamond Crystal)
Preparation:
1. In a medium pot, add the dried mushrooms, tomatoes, onion, Scotch bonnet chile, ginger and 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to medium. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tomato skins start to crack and slip off easily when pulled.
2. Remove the tomatoes, onions, ginger and Scotch bonnet (leave the dried mushrooms in the pot), and place in a blender or food processor. Coarsely pulse with 2 cups water, about 1 minute.
3. Strain this mixture back into the pot using a sieve. Press down on the mixture until it’s somewhat dry. Discard what’s left in the sieve. Stir the tomato paste and bouillon, if using, into the pot.
4. Bring to a boil, add the salt and simmer the soup on medium-low heat until thickened but still brothy, 25 to 30 minutes. Skim any foam off the surface. Add the sliced mushrooms (or fish) and cook for 2 to 3 minutes until tender and just cooked through. Taste and adjust salt if necessary.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
