Healthy African Snack 2: Garden Egg And Groundnut Sauce.

Garden egg (Solanum melongena) is traditionally eaten raw, used in stews and salads in Africa. Garden eggs make wonderful snacks because they are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and active components which have antioxidant and other beneficial properties. Read here for more about garden eggs and their health properties.

 In South East Nigeria, it is popularly snacked on with a special sauce made with groundnut and local spices. This sauce has its origin amongst the Igbo people of Nigeria where it is called ose oji or okwu ose. It is the African version of peanut butter but with African spices added to it. Below are the main ingredients used in preparing groundnut sauce;

• Ground roasted groundnuts.
• Ground African or calabash nutmeg seeds (Read here about calabash nutmeg, uses, names and health benefits)
• Ground dry pepper. (Jalapeno, Cameroon pepper, bird's eye pepper, etc.)
• Ground African black pepper seeds. (Read here about African pepper, other names, uses and benefits)
• Ground alligator pepper seeds. 
• Vegetable oil.

To prepare, roasted groundnuts are ground and mixed with all the other ingredients. You may use peanut butter to replace groundnuts. It takes less than 10 minutes to prepare this healthy, spicy and tasty sauce.

From this snack, you gain a lot in terms of health benefits and garden eggs are rich in fiber too. If you are trying to maintain a good weight, limit the amount of groundnuts you will use in your sauce because groundnuts are high in calories. They however have healthy oils which promote good health.

Some people used groundnuts alone with garden eggs and this combination offers a lot of benefits too.

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