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Peanut Soup

Peanut Soup is a traditional West African recipe for a meat stew (soup) that is flavoured with hot chillies (chilies) and thickened with peanut butter. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic West African version of: Peanut Soup.

prep time

15 minutes

cook time

60 minutes

Total Time:

75 minutes

Serves:

4–6

Rating:

Tags : Chilli RecipesSpice RecipesBeef RecipesWest-africa Recipes

The mix of meat and seafood (especially fish) is a feature of West African cookery, which tends to be heavy on starch and fat and light in meat-based proteins. The tendency is to use a fair amount of fish, with the addition of dried fish (either smoked or salted) to add flavour. Here beef and crab are mixed, but any combination of prawns, fish, crabs, crayfish could be used instead. After all the recipe is only a guide and would be made from whatever was at hand. This is one of my wife's recipes.

Ingredients:

1kg diced beef
1 Bitter Tomato, roughly sliced (substitute a green tomato and half a small aubergine)
3 6x6 cm sections of prepared cow skin cut into 2cm square sections
4 onions, roughly chopped
1 tsp salt
100 ml strong beef broth (or 100ml water with 2 beef stock cubes)
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp anchovies paste/fish sauce (Nam Pla)
6 Sénégal Pepper pods, crushed and tied in a muslin bag
1/2 tsp sumac (optional)
12 Scotch Bonnet chillies
400ml unsweetened peanut butter
6 crab claws (optional)
600g rice

Method:

If using fish for this recipe (rather than the crab) then deep fry the fish beforehand and set aside. Add the meat, skins (if using) and spices to a large stock pot and add a little (200ml) water. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and cover.

Meanwhile, make a past of the chillies by pounding in a pestle and mortar and add half the onions to this and pound in. Add 2 tbsp of this mixture to the meat stew stir, in, cover and cook for 10 minutes. At this point add the anchovy paste, crab claws (and/or fish if using) and the remainder of the onions to the stew. Cover and cook for a further two minutes.

Put the peanut butter in a large bowl and make to 1.5l with water, using your hands to work the peanut paste into the water. Add this paste to the cooking meat (leaving any sediment behind) and add the Sénégal pepper. Bring to the boil then add the remaining chilli paste.

Boil for 45 minutes, until thickened, then serve on a bed of rice.