Wednesday, February 16, 2011

West African Peanut and Chicken Stew

A while back my friend Susi forwarded me a recipe for West African Peanut Soup with Chicken. She said that she & her husband loved the flavor of it except they had been making it as more of a stew than a soup. Well, I looked at the list of ingredients, peanuts, ginger, garlic, kale, tomato, sweet potato, & knew it was something Matt & I would love too.
West African Peanut & Chicken Stew
I agreed with Susi that is sounded better as a stew so, I adjusted the liquids in the recipe quite a bit. I left out almost all the stock but, unlike the original recipe I added the juice of the tomatoes. This was just enough liquid to cook the sweet potatoes in & make a nice sauce. The other main change I made was to add some Sriracha, the final dish really improved with a touch of heat.

This was a fantastic meal. We really liked the way the peanut flavor went with all the other ingredients, even kale. I've made other African dishes like this in the past & have found them rather bland so, I was happy that this one was so full of flavor. It is quite a hearty dish so, you could even skip the rice we served it over but, we like to have something to soak up the extra sauce.

West African Peanut & Chicken Stew
(adapted from the New York Times)

2 T peanut or canola oil
1 medium yellow or white onion, chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled & minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lb of boneless, skinless chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 sweet potatoes, peeled & cut into 1/4-inch slices
14.5 oz can of crushed or chopped tomatoes
1 c chicken stock or broth
1/4 t cayenne
4 oz kale, chopped, tough stems removed
3/4 c peanuts, roughly chopped by hand or in a food processor
1/4 - 1/2 c peanut butter (I used somewhere in the middle)
Sriracha
salt & pepper
hot rice

In a large high sided skillet or sauce pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, ginger & garlic & cook until the onion softens, about 3 - 4 minutes. Add the chicken & sauté another 5 minutes. Add the sweet potato, tomatoes (including juices). stock, cayenne, kale & 1/2 c of the peanuts. Bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover & let simmer until the chicken is cooked through & the sweet potatoes are tender, about 20 - 25 minutes.

Stir in the 1/4 cup peanut butter & a few squirts of Sriracha (judge based on how hot you like things). Taste & add more peanut butter if you wish plus salt & pepper as needed.

Serve over hot rice. Sprinkle servings with remaining peanuts.

Makes 4 - 5 servings.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

19 comments:

Meg Luby said...

i love dishes like this, hot food and spices over rice with some crunchy peanuts. this recipe looks amazing, i cannot WAIT to give it a try. my roomie is a fan of this type of cuisine so, i am sure this will be a hit in our kitchen :-D
thanks for sharing
-meg
@ http://www.clutzycooking.blogspot.com
@ http://www.myscribblednotebook.blogspot.com

Lori said...

That looks like a healthy and tasty stew!

A Bowl Of Mush said...

Yum! This looks delicious!

Beth (jamandcream) said...

Healthy and tasty. Looks like a yummy dish

vanillasugarblog said...

i always prefer a stew like over broth anyday. i love this.

Megan said...

What an interesting stew. I've never had any African food, West or otherwise, but it sounds like something I would love to try. Would have never thought peanuts in a stew but yummy!

SMITH BITES said...

Dishes like this one are some of my favorites - and while i've not cooked many S African recipes, i can imagine the taste - spicy and full of flavor!

grace said...

i think every african dish i've ever tried has involved peanuts in some form, whether whole or as peanut butter. and hey--that's a-okay with me! great stew!

Chris and Amy said...

We recently received a blogging award and wanted to pass it along to you!

http://acoupleinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2011/02/stylish-bloggers-we-are.html

RJ Flamingo said...

I've always wanted to try something like this, and since I love all the flavors in the ingredients list, definitely going to do it! Bookmarked!

Unknown said...

What an exciting combination of ingredients. I'll have to try this one soon. Thanks for posting it!

Alicia Foodycat said...

My grandfather worked in Nigeria for a while in the late 1940s, and he still remembers the peanut stews and soups fondly! This looks really delicious.

Danielle said...

MMM, looks very similar to one I like to make. Check out my my blog for a vegetarian version here: http://dani-lovefoodlovelife.blogspot.com/2011/01/few-of-my-favorite-things.html

PG said...

Ohh -- sounds like a dish we would like too!

Jenn @leftoverqueen said...

I love this combination! Sounds so fantastic!

snippets of thyme said...

Oh, I am very excited. I am finally getting past all of the fashion and style blogs and on to the cooking blogs! Yours looks fantastic. I'll start looking!

Lori said...

Oh we would love this too! So glad you posted it. I'm needing some good stew recipes like this to finish out this winter.

shopgirl said...

I am so glad you liked it.
You could do it with a beautiful crusty loaf o bread too.

just jenn said...

after perusing many online variations of the sweet potato/peanut soup/stew, i ended up with a just slightly more soup-than-stew version of this today, using the sweet potato leaves instead of kale. it smells wonderful! i'm just waiting and waiting for the brown rice to finish cooking (thank goodness for the rice cooker).

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