Featured
Soul Warming Recipes!
Big Green Egg
Featured
Hot & Spicy!
K’s Choice
Peppery Chicken Curry
Fonq
FM
Chicken Palava (African peanut stew)
I have a pretty special (and simple) dinner recipe for you. Not so special you can’t whip it up during any given weeknight, but it’s a fun recipe. It’s different, and that’s exactly what we need now and then.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, it won’t come as a surprise to you that I’m a serious peanut-o-holic. I love anything peanut, and simply have to try every recipe that includes some form of peanut (butter). And anything bacon, but that’s a different posting all together. Bottom-line; I’m weak and proud of it. Don’t tell me you’re any different. I won’t buy into it!
It’s why I came up with my peanut flavored potatoes, and several other recipes calling for peanut butter. But one of my favorites—though the photos are pretty darn bad—will always be my Ghanaian peanut soup. This Chicken Palava is also a peanut based African recipe that will blow you away. If you like the soup, then you will surely like this one as well.
I realize what a big leap it is from the iron pots and wooden spoons type of food in Ghana to my Le Creuset in Dutch suburbia, but seriously guys, I’m taking you to Africa with me!
Ingredients:
1 pound chicken fillet
1 pretty large onion
1 large red bell pepper
2 large garlic cloves
2 big, juicy tomatoes
1/2 pound fresh spinach
4 tbsp (peanut) oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp chili powder (hot)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp dried thyme”
5 tbsp peanut butter
2 cups chicken broth
extra brown sugar
pepper
salt
Directions:
Somehow I always find myself using the same basic ingredients such as onion, bell pepper, garlic etc. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to show you for the umpth time how to dice an onion, peel tomatoes, grate garlic and chop stuff, so I just turn this…
….into this. There. All done.
Cut the chicken into tiny cubes. Remember the yellow cutting board I had? It died on me. And for the life of me, I can’t seem to find a new one. So I just wrote “Kip” (meaning chicken) on a red one, and that makes it okay to use the red one for chicken. See, I do have a logical system. I really do!
Don’t you love big storyboards? I just saved your finger a 10-photo scrolling trip. Combine the oil with the sesame oil, pinch of salt, loads of pepper, chili powder (the hot version), dried thyme, ground ginger, brown sugar and garlic.
Mix it with the chicken and let it marinade for 15 minutes while you move on with the recipe.
This is so hard-core! I steered clear from the prewashed stuff and bought fresh spinach at the market. Okay, so I was just testing my new salad spinner, but still. Wash and dry 1/2 a pound spinach. I tend to remove the long stalks because they freak out my kid. I prefer using the leaves whole, but you can give them a chop as well.
No need to add oil to the pan since the marinade contained oil. Cook the chicken until it loses its rawness and add the onion and bell pepper. Cook everything for 5 more minutes.
Spoon the peanut butter in there, pour in the chicken broth and add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer, over low heat, for 20 to 25 minutes without the lid on.
After 20 minutes the sauce will have cooked down and thickened a bit. Season with salt, pepper, chili powder and brown sugar to taste. Stir in the spinach and as soon as it wilts, turn off the heat. Told you it was a simple recipe.
This one covers all the bases: chicken, vegetables and peanut. How can it not be good? Serve with lots of rice, eat and be happy. Hakuna Matata!
Kay’s Recipe Card
Click here for printable size.
| Chicken Palava | |
| Ingredients |
|
| Directions |
|
| copyright © kayotickitchen.com | |
68 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Hi Kay,
I am a long-time reader but not a commenter usually. I have loved every one of your recipes I have tried. I made this last night using some left-overs from a Sunday roast chicken, and it was fabulous. I used more sesame oil than you called for, which gave it a really Asian, almost Vietnamese flavour. Thanks!
I’ve been waiting to see this one and it looks fantastic. Saving the recipe now. (I’m a peanut addict too.)
My friend and I just made it from the recipe off your site and it was very good. We are addicted to thai food so we kept wanting to add more spicyness but followed the recipe to the T and was really happy with the result. Thanks. Definitely gonna keep coming back for more. Also the site was linked off of foodgawker.com. Don’t know if you care about how it all goes around.
That looks really good! I like using peanut butter in savoury dishes like this.
Hi am happy to see an African dish, am African and i love this dish it is much eaten in West African. You can cook it without spinach or peppers too its very delicious.
I would love to try this. Looks so good!
Magda
The Husband and I made this for dinner last night, and we both agreed it was absolutely delicious. (This is high praise coming from me – I HATE spinach, any kind of peppers and tomatoes.)
It gave The Husband pretty serious gas, though…
I love your photography! and the food looks really tasty as well!
This dish rocks!! we love it. Thanks again for the great ideas.
This dish looks great.
Thanks for posting this and I really like the way you take the pictures.
I just made and blogged about this stew. Delicious! Thank you for sharing!
http://glutenfreegidget.blogspot.com/2010/03/peanut-butter-and-pattys-day.html
I made this stew and both my husband and I absolutely loved it! It was my first time using this site, but I’ll definitely use it again. :D Thank you so much!!
I made this tonight and it was a hit. Very delicious and everyone loved it. I ended up using jarred roasted peppers because it’s all I had and it worked very well. Thanks for the great recipe.
I made this last night and it was delicious, thanks for the recipe.
This one has been in my backlog of recipes to try for a little while now, and I made it tonight, and it came out great, despite the fact that I discovered midway that I was out of brown sugar. I substituted a little white sugar in the soup, and some maple syrup in the marinade. Also added a pinch of cumin. It came together really well, and was, indeed, super easy.
Hi, first, I love your food blog, the design is awesome and the photos are really juicy and colorful. I am very impressed.
second, this recipe looks delicious, I am making this for dinner next week. Thanks for sharing.
Angelica from Norway/Sweden
I just made this tonight– very nice! I stumbled on this website googling african peanut curry. :) I think next time I would maybe start the onions and peppers before the chicken (with a bit of the marinade for oil), so they can get soft without cooking the chicken too much. And I’ll add some red pepper flakes for some more spice! Thanks for the recipe! And of course your photos are gorgeous…
Hoi Kay,
I made the palava tonight for dinner and it was wonderful. Even before adding the peanut butter (actually, some sate sauce I had on hand), it was delish! Luckily for me I made plenty so I have 3 yummy lunches in the freezer. Gotta love leftovers.
Kay, I have to compliment you not just on your cooking and photography (both super, BTW), but your English is outstanding! I’m an American living in NL for 8 years and even I now have more Dutch-isms in my written English than you… :^D
Knap gedaan!
Susanne in Apeldoorn
Just as an idea: Use chunky peanut butter. It’s fantastic to just get a little crunch of real peanuts every couple of bites.
I had to post another comment about this dish. Thank you again, Kay.. this dish won first prize at my work’s International Food day! What’s even better is that this is the first time a non-dessert has won… :^D
The only changes I made to the recipe was to use canned diced tomatoes, fresh chilis, ginger and thyme and added 1 vegetable bullion cube. This recipe rocks!!
@ Suzanne:
What… no photos? Shame on you :)
I saw this recipe today and could not stop thinking about it all day, so I made it for dinner. My husband thought it was spectacular, and the friend we had over, who had lived in Africa for years, said that it reminded her of those years. So thank you!
Geraldine
http://geraldineinabottle.blogspot.com
Heb dit recept laatst eens gemaakt, en ik heb een grote vraag: waarom geen rode pepers?
Ik heb zelf afgelopen jaar 5 maanden in Ghana gewoond, en vergeleken met wat ik daar at (incl. ook de groundnut-spinach stew zoals mijn gastgezin dit gerecht noemde) is jouw versie extreem mild; naar mijn smaak echt té mild, maar goed, dat is persoonlijk natuurlijk. Vroeg me alleen af of er een specifieke reden was voor jou om er geen spicy variant van te maken??
Leuk om te zien dat je recept verder echt heel dicht tegen “het origineel” (zoals mij het daar in de Ghanese sloppenwijk is geleerd dan, haha) aan zit. Het enige wat ik ‘mis’ is de palmolie, en die mis ik stiekem helemaal niet!
Oh, aanvullingkje: ik zie dat veel mensen je richting de Massaman-curry sturen – heb je die inmiddels al eens geprobeerd?? Blijft één van mijn all-time favourites! Heb je ervaring met het zelf maken van Thaise currypasta’s? Mij is het namelijk nooit gelukt gerechten daarmee zo goed te krijgen als ik in Thailand zelf heb gegeten, dus daarvoor gebruik ik toch nog altijd een kant-en-klaar zakje pasta. Ben benieuwd wat jij daarmee doet.
@Celine:
Omdat ik een zoontje van 4 heb die ook mee eet! Hij kan wel wat hitte hebben, maar je kunt het uiteraard niet vlammend heet maken voor zo’n kleintje.