Sometimes you just want to eat eba, but the soup situation doesn’t cooperate. That was me the other day; hungry, between market runs, and with very few ingredients in the fridge. I had goat meat and spinach, so I thought, “Perfect! Let’s make a quick spinach sauce.”
I steamed the goat meat with some seasonings, blended habanero and onion, and added that in. Then came the spinach. Once it simmered together, I took a taste. Oh my goodness! It was weird. I could taste goat, but I also felt like a goat. The spinach taste was so strong that I thought I was chewing straight leaves.
Determined to fix it, I thought maybe it was because I didn’t add crayfish, iru, or a proper efo riro base. Since I didn’t have any of those on hand, I decided to add another vegetable to help with flavor. I quickly blended some okazi leaves and mixed it in. It helped a bit; it tasted like low-budget afang soup, but it still wasn’t quite there.
If it was just me eating, I could have powered through, but this was dinner for the whole family. It had to taste good. So I finally caved and added some palm oil. Because let’s be honest, I can’t come and kill myself just because I want lower calories. And you know what? It worked. The sauce tasted way better. Not perfect, but good enough for everyone to eat without complaints.
Lesson learned: When tweaking your meals for fewer calories, don’t remove too many of the flavor foundations. I’ve made oiless efo riro in the past, and it was amazing because the palm oil was the only thing missing; all the other flavor builders (crayfish, iru, pepper mix) were intact. But with this spinach sauce, I removed too much and ended up with something flat. Balance is key.
Healthy eating doesn’t mean every recipe will be perfect, and that’s okay. Sometimes you keep the tweak, sometimes you add the palm oil back, and sometimes you just laugh at yourself for nearly turning dinner into goat food. 🐐
