wepon: orange mantis sitting on a partially-peeled orange, holding part of the peel in its forelegs (Default)
wepon ([personal profile] wepon) wrote2023-09-30 10:04 pm
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Peanut Butter Soup

This is a recipe I'll have to come back to and adjust. I made it once...sort of...and it was pretty good. "Sort of" as in I couldn't follow instructions fully. Oddly enough, one adjustment might be to add more peanut butter, as I wanted a stronger peanut flavor the first time around. But it is delicious!

Ingredients:
2 medium onions, peeled and kept whole
3 large tomatoes
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces (I didn't cut mine into pieces; see below)
8 small eggplant (my store doesn't have "small" eggplants
1 pound okra
1 pepper scotch bonnet pepper (couldn't find this at my store so I used a habanero)
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, grated (personally I use ginger paste, it's more convenient for me)
3 bay leaves
6 heaping tablespoons peanut butter
2 quarts chicken stock

Steps:
Place the chicken in a large, heavy stockpot. Place whole, peeled onions, pepper, grated ginger, and tomatoes into the pot. Add chicken stock and place over high heat. (Ftr, first I put the chicken in the slow cooker for a while in the hopes I could have this be a slow cooker recipe. I could not. But it did soften up the chicken so I don't think it was a bad idea to slow cook it first.)

Bring the pot to a boil and reduce to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until the onions and tomatoes are tender. Remove onions and tomatoes from the pot and transfer to a blender. (I also put the pepper in the blender and I think that was an improvement. The heat of the pepper was evenly distributed in the soup.)

Blend the soft vegetables in a blender, then pour back into the pot, bring to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes.

Cut the stem ends off the eggplants and make a cross-shaped incision in the tops (not too deep as the eggplant should remain whole). Add them to the soup. (Again, I couldn't find small eggplants so I just chopped big ones up into pieces. It worked okay. The eggplant pieces tended to fall apart after thawing and heating saved soup but it wasn't super unpleasant imo.)

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the peanut butter until it is very runny. Begin to add water a little at a time to the pot, stirring to prevent lumps or scorching, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add peanut sauce to the pot and stir to combine. Peanut oil will begin to separate from the sauce and float on the surface.

Cut the ends off the okra and add them to the soup. Simmer another 10 minutes then add salt to taste, and serve. (I used a bag of frozen pre-chopped okra, which also felt fine.)