Best Way to Clean Periwinkles for Your Afang Soup

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The Afang soup is perhaps the most renowned culinary export from Southern Nigeria. It is a much sought after delicacy in restaurants that serve African dishes all across the country. While it is quite common in many parts of Nigeria, Afang soup is truly in its most glorious form at home in the Niger Delta states like Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers.

Periwinkles constitute a part of the key ingredients required for preparing Afang soup. Periwinkles, like snails, are rich in protein, iron, and Omega-3. But anyone who has ever cooked Afang soup will testify that getting the purple-y, delicious wrinkles out of their shell or preparing them for eating can be tedious.

Cleaning periwinkles properly is essential to having an Afang soup that is enjoyable. It could make all the difference when preparing the soup. That’s why some people would rather just purchase already cleaned and packed ones in the market. These ones are considerably pricier, though. In this post, we will be sharing tips on how you can clean your own periwinkles at home.

  1. Properly rinse the Periwinkles in lukewarm water. This is to ensure that sand, mud and any such dirt can be washed off.
  2. Place them in boiling water for about 5 minutes. This helps to rinse the shells and rid them of germs and dirt that may be attached. Drain the water after 5 minutes or so.
    3. Poke out the Periwinkles with a pin. After draining the boiling water, you will find that the meat of the periwinkles sort of come to the surface of their shells and you can then poke them out with a pin. Collect in a bowl of water. You may add ginger to the water in the bowl to spice the periwinkles.

Those are the 3 basic steps required to clean Periwinkles. However, there are some people who don’t go through the trouble of poking out the meat from the shells. That’s why you see some afang soups with the periwinkles still inside their shells. Although, these ones have their shells cut at the tail end so that people can suck out the meat while eating their Afang.

 

Culled from: Mamador Blog