Ethiopian Stew

Now before you read this post I have to warn you that this is not going to be a week night recipe. Unfortunately this one takes a little longer to prepare and cook, so it's best kept until the weekend when you perhaps have some more time on your hands. That's of course, unless you find yourself at home during the week and don't have to deal with a lengthy commute like ourselves!

Either way, this recipe is absolutely delicious and is a must for you all to try and some point. We first tried something similar at Borough Market in London. That was our first taste of Ethiopian cuisine and we fell in love with it. African food can be spicy, but the addition of peanut butter smooths the flavours out and creates a creamy, mouthwatering concoction. It really is delicious!

If you're not a fan of spice, or are worried that it could be too spicy, you could easily cut back on the chillies used and not include the cayenne pepper.

We found the original recipe for a 'spicy African chicken stew' on BBC Good Food, but found that it didn't pack in a lot of veg. And in our experience we have tasted lots of wonderful veggies in our Ethiopian dishes. So we've add mushrooms and green beans to the red peppers and sweet potato. The green beans and a nice colour and texture to the dish.

And as always we went BIG on this recipe. We made enough for 8 portions to freeze, but of course you can reduce the quantities to make less if desired.Ingredients (serves 8):

• 8 pieces of chicken on the bone (we used thigh and drumstick)
• 340g jar smooth peanut butter
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 2 chillies, diced
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 3 medium onions, sliced
• 3tsp ground cumin
• 3tsp ground coriander
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2tsp cayenne pepper
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 2cm cubes
• 2 red peppers, cut into chunks
• 1 handful small cup mushrooms
• 1 small pack of green beans
• 1 large handful of coriander, chopped (keep a little for serving)
• Rice and lime wedges to serve
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Mix the hot vegetable  stock and peanut butter together in a pan, until dissolved. Heat 1tbsp oil in a frying pan on a medium heat and fry the chicken on both sides, browning the skin. Once browned, remove from the pan onto a plate and put to one side.
2. Heat 1tbsp oil in a very large pan on a medium to low heat. Fry the onions for 5 minutes and then stir in the ground cumin, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, chilli and ginger. Finally add the chopped tomatoes, stirring thoroughly and cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the peanut stock and chicken to the pan and simmer for 30 minutes on a low heat, stirring often to make sure the peanut butter doesn't stick.
4. Add the sweet potatoes pepper, mushrooms, green beans and coriander (leaving some to sprinkle on top to serve), and simmer for a further 30 minutes.
5. We served our stew with basmati rice, but you could also use brown rice or long grain white rice.