I love collecting cookbooks. I remembered the time when my friends were raving about the Kindle and how the age of book printing will be coming to an end and how you can store millions of books in a small device, I have to admit that a small part of me deflated. You see, I love magazines and cookbooks. And of course, I love to read too. I remembered going to all the libraries of the different departments in my college and walking into the old building housing so many books. The feeling was just overwhelming. True enough, my love of books will always be there so I will somehow always have a rather small collection of books including cookbooks.
Jamie Oliver's Comfort Food was a gift from my cousins from my most recent trip to Hong Kong. It took me sometime to go through it. This book is to be savored. I can sense that this was painstakingly well thought of. With one recipe more unique or humble than the next. I think it was based on the philosophy that as long as the ingredients are fresh and the method is well, home made, you will end up with a fantastic recipe. A lot of recipes caught my eye but a lot of them have steps that you have to re-read at least 3 times. And you know me, I tend to memorize recipes.
There were dozens of recipes I wanted to make but for today, I settled on the Ghanaian Groundnut Stew. The process for this dish was quite long but the ingredients were simple. The end result was very nostalgic. It reminded me of a Filipino oxtail dish called Kare-Kare - made with peanut butter and local vegetables. It was remarkable and I will definitely make the dish again. I made a few alterations to the recipe such as not using scotch bonnet chillies but using pimient d'espelette or espelette pepper powder instead. I also removed the grilled okra - this is a bit difficult to find here in Melbourne.
The process has its charm and the chicken meat was falling off the bone by the time everything is cooked. I like this dish just as it is and eat it like a stew. It is hearty, rich and warming. Very "comforting". Points to Jamie!
Ghanaian Groundnut Stew
Adapted from Jamie Oliver's Comfort Food
Ingredients:
1.5 kg chicken thighs, bone on, skin on
2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
1 teaspoon espelette powder
black pepper, salt and olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
2 medium eggplant, chopped into chunks
500 ml chicken or vegetable stock
1.5 cups passata
5-6 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1-2 tablespoons smooth or natural peanut butter, to taste
Method:
The Day Before - Prepare the chicken: Place the chicken thighs, coriander, paprika, chilli powder, salt, pepper and olive oil in a zipped lock bag and toss to coat. Place in the fridge for up to 2 hours or overnight.
Roast the chicken: When ready to cook, preheat your oven to 200C. Place the chicken thighs on a roasting tray. Cook for 45 minutes.
After 30 minutes, cook the vegetables - In a heavy casserole or dutch oven, add some oil and cook the onions and eggplant for 30 minutes. 15 minutes into cooking, remember to take out the chicken from the oven. Set aside. The vegetables will be very mushy at this point after 30 minutes.
Assemble the dish (not yet done) - Once the vegetables are mushy, add the passata and the vegetable stock. Add the roast chicken along with all the juices in the tray and the tomatoes. Bring all of this to a boil then simmer for 1 hour with the LID OFF.
To complete the dish - 30 minutes into simmering - Place the peanut butter into the center of the pan and let it melt away for the rest of the cooking time.
I ate this dish with browned rice but I guess any starch will work well with this.
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