One of the only good things about my last job was some of the wonderful friends I made. One of those, sadly now moved away, is my beloved Sarah Eckhart. I was lucky enough to see her and Josh briefly at Christmas and she has no idea how delighted I am when I get an email from her or see a comment here on the blog. She’s one of those friends I will always feel connected to despite time and distance separating us. She sent this recipe along to me the other day and it is now simmering on the stove—-it smells WONDERFUL….
Okay, this is a good dish for cold nights and it is especially nice with a tall, cold beer.
Mafe (Senegalese Groundnut Stew)
Ingredients (I often alter the balance of ingredients, hence the loose measurements. Also, chunks of vegetables can be quite large because I usually cook it long enough that they fall apart anyway.):
1/2 cup peanut oil
2 pounds chicken (I use boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but into chunks because the meat is nice and tender and falls apart in the stew.)
1 or 2 onions, chopped fine (around 1/2 pound)
1 large can (800 grams?) tomatoes (sometimes I drain, sometimes I don't, depending on how tomato-ey I want the base)
1 - 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper, or to taste
salt to taste
2 large bell peppers (I like red, orange or yellow, but the recipe calls for green), peeled and chopped
1 acorn squash, peeled and chopped
1-2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
2-3 turnips, peeled and chopped
1 pound cassava root if available (I have never seen this in the US, but even when I used it in London, I didn't think it added much to the flavor.)
2 cups water
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1 cup peanut butter (natural, with no sugar added)
1 head of cabbage cut into 8 wedges and then chopped in half
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Put the oil in a heavy soup pot and heat to high. Brown chicken in batches and remove. Turn the heat down and saute onions until golden. Then add tomatoes, simmer for a few minutes and scrape up all of the chicken bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken back in and stir to coat. Add the cayenne and salt. Add the acorn squash, sweet potatoes, turnips, and peppers. Add two cups of water or a little more if needed. Let simmer for 45 minutes. Removed a cup of liquid and place it in a bowl. Add the cup of peanutbutter to the reserved liquid and stir until the peanutbutter dissolves. Add the peanutbutter mixture back into the soup pot. Gradually add the cabbage, stirring as it starts to wilt (it can sometimes be hard to cram it all in there). Let it cook for at least another 30 minutes or more, stirring on occasion because the bottom can sometimes start to burn.
We usually serve over brown rice.
It is great the first night but it gets better each night we serve the left overs.
The recipe is from "Best of Regional African Cooking" by Harva Hachten, Hipocrene Books, 1970 and 1998.
Here is an introductory note from the cookbook:
"Perhaps the stew best known outside of Africa is Groundnut Stew. This dish is widely prepared in West Africa from Senegal to the Congo. There are hundreds of ways of preparing it—with fish or meat or chicken, with one vegetable or many—depending on the availability of food and the cook's budget. It always, naturally, contains peanuts. . . . In Senegal Groundnut Stew is called Mafe and calls for a variety of vegetables that clearly shows the residual Gallic influence in that former French colony."
I bought the cookbook when we lived in London and I was trying to figure out how to use all of the exotic ingredients for sale in our neighborhood outdoor market that primarily served a population from Ghana as well as Jamaica. I never ventured into the land of dried fish but I did learn how to use Cassava root.
Miss you,
Sarah
I miss you too Sarah.
Here she is catching snow flakes with Silas (although he’s still known as Baby Silas in our household). She’s one of those people that just keeps getting more beautiful. Irritating but I love her nonetheless.
Oh and except for the tomatoes, I think it’s BoyChild friendly! Not that he would eat that many foods put together in the same dish. You know touching and everything. I’m just saying.
Wow, I feel famous or something. I hope that it tasted as good as it smelled. I have never met Gina, but via your posts I am quite inspired by her! It is wonderful to hear such good news about Judi.
A friend made something like this for me once after she got back from a Peace Corps assignment in Sierra Leone, but I’ve never seen a recipe before.
It’s cool that it includes winter squash *and* sweet potatoes. I wouldn’t think to include both, but I can see how they both work together to create the texture and sweet depth.
Also, it’s wild to think of the cabbage in there. How perfect — the sweetness and lift that it would bring. I never, ever would have thought of that, and I’m not sure if my friend included it in her soup.
I will try this soon! How did it taste chez you?
It was wonderful! We will definitely make this again…. I’m kind of on a cabbage kick of late so this was really perfect….and I adore sweet potatoes but I don’t like them sweetened all that much so this recipe is definitely a keeper….
and of course without the chicken this would be vegan friendly too….
That sounds fabulous. I’ve made something similar years ago, out of the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook. It was such a surprise — peanut butter outside of a PB & J (this was before I knew about satay w/peanut sauce, etc.). I need to try this recipe.
It IS great when Sarah writes. Is there any way that we can get Josh to write? And to post pictures?