West African Chicken and Peanut Stew with Chiles, Ginger, and Green Onions

By Stina

Ingredients

• 1-2 T olive or canola oil (the recipe called for 2 T, but I think you could use less)
• 1/4 cup finely diced red onion (could also use regular onion)
• 1 T finely minced ginger root (I wouldn't use ginger from a jar for this dish)
• 2 tsp. finely minced jalapeno (I used pickled jalapenos which worked fine. Increase if you want it spicy.)
• salt to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp. sea salt)
• 1 tsp. chile powder
• 1 cup chicken stock (chicken broth from a can is fine)
• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (use natural peanut butter without added sugar for South Beach Diet)
• 2 T tomato paste
• 1 T cider vinegar
• 3 cups diced, cooked chicken (use white meat or carefully remove fat from dark meat for South Beach Diet)
• fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 3-4 green onions (scallions) thinly sliced

Details

Adapted from kalynskitchen.com

Preparation

Step 1

Finely chop the red onion, ginger, and jalapeno, and roughly chop the chicken. Heat oil in a heavy pan, add finely diced onion, ginger, and jalapenos, season with salt, and saute about 2 minutes. Add the chile powder, stir into other ingredients, and saute about 1 minute more.

Add chicken stock, peanut butter, tomato paste, and apple cider vinegar, stir, and bring to a slight boil. As soon as it starts to boil, lower heat to a very gentle simmer, add roughly chopped chicken, gently stir to combine, and let simmer 10-15 minutes. (Resist the urge to stir it very much, or the chicken will shred apart, which you don't want here.)

While mixture simmers, wash, dry, and slice green onions. After 10-15 minutes, gently stir again if the oil from the peanut butter has separated. Serve hot, with a generous handful of green onion slices on each serving.