My wife was raised in Africa, among other places, and when I told her that this week I was making a peanut soup, she had definite opinions about what that meant. For one thing, it had to have beef in it…and it had to be tender. The fact that only about one in twenty recipes add beef to peanut soup didn’t phase her, though she confessed that her mother might have been using the soup as a way to use up really cheap beef. Personally, I’m a fan of really cheap beef. My grill’s best friend is named Chuck. He’s a cheap-steak and can be kind of tough at times, but he’s got good taste.
But I didn’t so much want to go there with the Peanut soup. Then there’s Vanessa, one of my soup tasters, who’s allergic to peanuts. Trying to please everyone gets complicated.
Or does it?
Not really. Like most soups, you can stop at any number of points along the way and come up with a different soup, and as always, it’s about timing.
So I made three soups out of one:
- Spicy Curried Sweet Potato Soup
- Spicy Peanut and Sweet Potato Soup
- EJ’s Mom’s Peanut Soup with Beef
…and I got some leftover chuck roast out of the deal as well.
African Three Way Soup
The basic soup
- 4 tbsp oil
4 sweet potatoes (4 lb), halved lengthwise,- 2 large onions, sliced (4 cups)
- 2 ribs celery (sliced)
- 3 carrots (sliced)
- 4 tsp garlic chopped
- 2 jalapenos, chopped, seeds removed
- 1 poblano pepper, chopped, seeds removed
- 2 qts chicken stock (low sodium)
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1 teaspoon cayenne
The other stages
- 3 cups organic peanut butter, chunky
- you want one that’s just peanuts and salt, no sugar
- 2 cups Chuck Roast, (sprinkled with salt and pepper, cooked @ 350 degrees/15 min lb)
While the potatoes were roasting (sprinkled with salt, sprayed with oil, turned face down in a 400 degree over for 50 min) I coarsly chopped up the onion, garlic and celery and sauteed them in a few tablespoons of oil until they were soft. Then they went into the stock, where they simmered for 20 min while the sweet potatoes cooked.
Roasting the sweet potatoes brings out their flavor, even caramelizing a bit of their sugars. I’m not fan of sweet potatoes…or I wasn’t until I tasted the result of roasting them. Letting them cool allowed me to peel the skins off rather than scooping out the pulp. Not wanting to lose the caramelized sugars in the pan, I deglazed it with a cup of water and added the result to the stock along with the pulp.
Next, I took my immersion blender to the soup, smoothing everything out. It got too thick as a result, so I added another quart of water.
Then I stopped, split off a pint, and seasoned it with salt, cumin, and curry.
One Way: Spicy Curried Sweet Potato Soup, accomplished.
I added the three cups of peanut butter, stirring to get it all incorporated, and another pint of water to get the consistency back to soup. The only seasonings I added were 2 tbsp salt and one tsp cayenne. The salt was about right, but it could use a bit more heat, depending on your audience.
For a garnish, I shelled and crushed some roasted peanuts and sprinkled them over the soup.
Two Way: Spicy Peanut and Sweet Potato Soup, also accomplished.
As soon as I’d taken the potatoes out of the oven, I turned down the heat to 350 and slid a 3 lb chuck roast in, covered with coarse salt an ground pepper. I wasn’t planning on using the whole thing, but just enough to add some shredded beef to the portion that made up the soup my gal was used to.It wasn’t as tender as if I’d added it in early, but it worked pretty well. For good measure I deglazed the roasting pan into the meat portion, getting about an 1/8 cup of drippings.
Three Way:, EJ’s Mom’s African Soup, and the whole mission…accomplished.
Links/Sources:
- The Congo Cookbook: http://www.congocookbook.com/soup_and_stew_recipes/peanut_soup.html
- ClosetCooking: http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/04/sweet-potato-and-peanut-soup.html