hi all! i'm a fan of food from all over the world. recently, i had a chance to eat some west african/nigerian cuisine from this little place in hong kong.

the chef gave me names of the dishes he cooked up. i got confused with what he had to say if the names were dish names or they were specifics words like "beef" or whatever it might be in its respective African language. it'll be great if you can help me identify what they are! i'm going to type out what he wrote down for me.

1) "egous."

- i'm guessing it's "egushi" which is the grounded pumpkin shelled seeds (or other types of seeds). mine was orange/slight brownish looking color. i'm sure it's egushi. it had a piece of fried fish in it.

2) "betleev soup"

- i kept looking for a dish or something related to this word. i'm not sure if he spelled it wrong. it's some type of dark, brown sauce/soup and it had some dark dried leafs looking thing in it. the chef said it's cabbage but it had leaf stems in it. after eating the dish for awhile, the leaf/stem thing became a little bitter. i was thinking it's "bitter leaf." and one dish i researched that might match this is "palaver" or "palava," however it might be spelled. this sauce was served with chicken and i had another one exactly the same with beef. perhaps the name was a specific African dialect.

3) "sthkey" or "slhelky" or "sthelcy"

- sorry, i couldn't read what he wrote. i think he said it was the name in his language for beef? or i think he was saying cow stomach. it was pretty much the same sauce as the "betleev soup."

4) "semo"

- i know this is similar to fu fu. it's pretty much this flour like substance in a big dome. it was soft kinda like mash potato but of course harder and easier to make into a ball and dip it into soup/sauce/stew. i wanted to know, what is the difference between "semo" and "fu fu" or anything similar to it. and what "semo' is made out of.


anyways, if you can provide any information for me! i'll truly appreciate it! i write up a food blog for restaurants in hong kong, so i'll need some help to write up a proper review! thank you in advance. =D

*bump*

please help =*(

@poster

the first dish or sauce is egusi soup and there are vast ways of preparing it. Egusi is also known as melon seed,it cld be mad with bitter leaf, pumpkin leaves,spinach and any type of green veggies

the second is also bitter leaf and this could be added to soups,stew,sauce the way you prefer it

3rd is called shaki and i fink u got it rite
nd lastly
semo is from the cereal family just like rice,wheat and so on. all u do is blend and u got ur semo to be used for cookin