GROUNDNUT (PEANUT) STEW | Healthy & Oil-Free

A quick search online will reveal that there are multiple interpretations of this African dish. From Nigeria to Mali to Ghana to Cameroon, everyone's got a version. This one's mine - a pretty stripped down, healthy but utterly delicious take on it. Touch of sweetness from the groundnut, heat from the scotch bonnet, all round creaminess of the stew...I could go on.

Why oil-free, you may ask? Because groundnut (aka peanuts) are already high in fat and contain their own natural oils. Adding oil seemed gratuitous to me (although the flavour of palm oil in this would probably be bomb, but still...hmm).

Couple of quick notes with this recipe: I haven't specified the type of mushrooms to use, but the meatier the better really. I happened to have some shiitake mushrooms at home and it worked great. Use whatever you can find. Also, the nuts are lightly roasted with some chilli, but feel free to use plain/lightly salted. Just make sure the flavours are balanced by tasting as you go along.

That's about it. Simple, quick, healthy and tasty - everything a meal should be. Eat it with fufu, rice, pounded yam, bread, or any other starchy food that exists in the world.

Ingredients
serves 4
- 1 cup lightly toasted groundnut (peanuts)
- 6 fresh tomatoes
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 small red onion
- 1 scotch bonnet pepper
- water
- mushrooms
- 1 bunch fresh basil (roughly chopped)
- salt to taste
- 1 tbsp black peppercorns

Method

1. Blend the peanuts until you have a crumbly paste (sorta similar to crunchy peanut butter)

2. Blend the peppers, onion and tomatoes with a cup of water until smooth

3. Pour the pepper blend into a pot/saucepan and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, medium-high heat

4. Stir in the groundnut paste. At this point, it will thicken rapidly. Add some water to loosen the stew and turn the heat down (medium-low)

5. Add the mushrooms

6. Season with salt and black peppercorns

7. Add the roughly chopped basil and simmer for another 2 minutes

Done!

AKARA BURGERS [VIDEO]

Or 'Akara Revisited' because I already have a post for this fabulous recipe. Here, I simply go into how I ended up turning akara into burgers and I share my latest YouTube video showing you exactly how to make this popular Nigerian snack/breakfast food.

A couple of weeks back, I hosted another Airbnb private dinner (find out more about that here) and featured akara in the second course of the menu. In my enthusiasm, I ended up making enough batter to feed an army. I'd always wanted to experiment using akara in a burger - a Nigerian take on a good ol' bean burger, if you will. And that's exactly what I did. Loaded some bread rolls with shallow-fired akara 'patties', leafy greens, tomatoes, sliced gherkins and the queen of burger sauces (in my opinion): ketchup. Simple but so darn tasty that I had to have it for dinner two nights in a row.

If you fancy giving this a try, then check out my video below which offers a step-by-step guide on how to make akara (including a super useful hack for the difficult peeling part of the process). As always, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below or joining me on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.