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Palm Soup Base #2
Palm Soup Base is a traditional Liberian recipe for soup base made from cooked and pounded palm nuts. This is the essential ingredient for any West African palm nut soup. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Liberian dish of: Palm Soup Base.
prep time
20 minutes
cook time
200 minutes
Total Time:
220 minutes
Additional Time:
(+cooling)
Makes:
4l
Rating: 
Tags : Sauce RecipesLiberia Recipes
This is one a traditional Liberian method for preparing a palm soup base directly from palm nuts. In fact it's simple to make, though quite labour intensive. If you can get hold of enough palm nuts then it's well worthwhile having a go at this yourself.
Ingredients:
2kg palm nuts
5l water +
Method:
Add the palm nuts to a large pan along with the water (ensure that the water covers the palm nuts). Bring to a boil, cover and continue boiling for about 1.5 hours, or until the volume of liquid has reduced to about 500ml and the skin of the palm nuts is soft.
Take off the heat and set aside to cool. When cold enough to handle drain the palm nuts (reserve the liquid) and pound in batches in a large pestle and mortar until the fibrous husks break away from the hard, black, kernels. Transfer the palm nuts to a large bowl as each batch is ready).
When all the palm nuts have been pounded pour the cooking liquid back over the top, along with a further 5l of water. Mix well with a large spoon then, using your hands, squeeze the palm nut pulp to release as much oil from them as possible.
Again, remove the fibrous material with your hands, squeezing as much liquid as possible from them as you do so (set the fibrous material aside in a bowl but leave the kernels in the liquid). Strain the remaining liquid through a fine-meshed sieve into a clean pan. Return the pan to the fire and bring to a boil (reserve the kernels and any remaining pulp).
Meanwhile, take the fibrous material and pound once more in a pestle and mortar. Transfer to a bowl along with the reserved kernels then add a further 5l of water to the pulp then squeeze and strain as before. This time the fibrous material and the kernels can be discarded. (However, if the palm nuts are particularly large and plump the extraction process can be repeated up to 4 times rather than just twice.)
Continue boiling until you can add the second set of liquid to the pan then reduce the overall volume to about 4l. This reduced palm soup base can be left in the refrigerator for several days, or it can also be frozen and stored for later use or it can be used immediately.
