Ugandan Cooking Lesson: Cowpea Leaves (Eboo)

After church one day, I was given a gift of a big bag of eboo and atigo.  This is a Ugandan green that I have never prepared myself.  Eboo is the leaves of cowpeas and atigo is a wild vegetable that is related to okra.  The woman who gave me the greens kindly explained to me how to cook them and then I put it into practice at home.  I was really pleased that I managed to do it well and they tasted very authentic!

First, I had to pull the cowpea leaves off of their stems and peel the middle vein off of the atigo leaves.  Then, I washed all of them very thoroughly.  They went in the fridge overnight, stuffed into a plastic container.  The next day, when I took them out to cook them, they kind of exploded out of the container.

Here are the general proportions of the ingredients:
6 big handfuls of cowpea leaves
1 big handful of atigo leaves (maybe okra leaves would work if you didn't have atigo?)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4-1/2 c. peanut butter
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. curry powder

The sauce for eboo includes peanut butter, curry powder, and salt.

You also need to add some baking soda to the water you cook the greens in.  People generally use a local "soda ash" but I do not have that, so baking soda was a reasonable substitution.

So here is how it works, you bring a pot of water to a boil, then add the greens and baking soda.

Cook for about 20 minutes, until the greens are nice and soft.  Pour off most of the water into a separate bowl (in case you need to add some for the sauce).

Then, mix in your peanut butter, salt, and curry powder.  Add more water to make the sauce soupier or more peanut butter to make it thicker. 

Serve with rice or posho.