Ghana Peanut Butter Soup and Rice Balls
This rich and comforting West African-inspired dish features tender marinated chicken simmered in a creamy peanut butter and tomato sauce, thickened with pureed squash for added depth. Served with hand-formed jasmine rice balls, it's a hearty and flavorful meal perfect for sharing with family and friends
Ingredients
4 lbs African marinated chicken Drumsticks, thighs, and breast skinned and roughly cut)
½ large yellow onion
1 Roma Tomato
¼ cup tomato paste
4 lbs jasmine rice
2 yellow squash
2 jars Smuckers Natural CREAMY Peanut Butter
¼ cup garlic paste
¼ cup ginger paste
1 carrot cut ½ inch ring
Directions
Pour marinated chicken in large heavy bottom pot over medium high heat to brown. Cover and cook 10 minutes.
Dice onion and separate ⅓ and ⅔ portion. Add ⅔ portion of onion to chicken in the pot and stir. Cover and cook.
Cut tomato in half and add to chicken in pot. Cover and stir. Add 2 tbs tomato paste to chicken in pot and stir. Cover and cook 10 min. Turn heat down to medium once chicken is brown after about 10 min
Wash jasmine rice thouroughly (because you weren’t there when they made it) and add to large pot. Cover rice with water about halfway to top (double liquid to rice). Nana doesn’t measure, sorry. Add 2 tbs salt to water or just make rice how you make it. This was a LOT! Feeds a family. Cover rice and put on stove to cook on medium high heat until it boils about 10-15 min. When it boils turn it down to simmer. After the rice cooks, stir it to make sure all the liquid is absorbed in it.
Return to pot and take softened tomatoes out of chicken pot. Put the tomato halves in a blender or food processor.
1 Cut yellow squash into 1 inch slices. Add 1 ½ squash to pot with chicken. Add 2 tbs tomato paste more to pot with chicken. Stir and cover
Empty 1 ½ jars of peanut butter to sauce pot. Blend tomatoes from the chicken pot with “a little bit” of water maybe ¼ cup to puree into a sauce and add to peanut butter pot. Put on stove to simmer until peanut oil separates from the peanut butter about 10 min. stir the peanut butter paste with tomatoes to help the oil bubble to the top
Remove squash from chicken pot and put in blender/food processor. Add another ¼ cup water to the squash in the blender and puree it. Pour the squash mixture in the chicken soup to thicken it. Rinse the sides of the blender and pour into soup.
Add the remaining ginger and garlic paste to the chicken soup and stir. Add 2 tbs more tomato paste to the soup and stir. Taste for salt and pepper. Adjust as needed.
Remove all the cooked chicken from the pot in a large bowl and set aside.
Add the peanut butter tomato mixture to the soup broth and stir. Return soup to boil. Allow soup to boil 10 min
Add the remaining sliced squash to the soup. Let boil slightly covered 5 min
While soup is boiling start making rice balls by pressing rice to the side of the pot to make a paste. Do in small sections around the pot. When you have a rice paste transfer a softball size to a wet soup bowl.
Swirl the wet soup bowl in both hands to allow sides of bowl to shape the ball. Turn the ball upside down and continue a few more rounds until you have a rice ball. Continue with remaining rice servings in a wet bowl abs place on a platter to serve. Add whatever vegetables to the soup you want that are not puréed like carrot or mushroom (optional). If you want more heat add a whole Serrano pepper for the brave.
To serve, place one rice ball in big bowl. Add one or two piece of chicken leg set to the side. Using a ladle pour the PB soup over the chicken partially covering the rice. Add one squash and carrot ring. Garnish with green onions. If you have extra African salsa, you can add it.
