Sopa de Cacahuete con Plátano

Name: Sopa de Cacahuete con Plátano
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Equatorial Guinea
Ingredients: 200 g smooth unsweetened peanut butter; 3 green plantains, peeled and cut into thick rounds; 500 g chicken or firm white fish, in pieces; 1 large onion, chopped; 4 cloves garlic, crushed; 3 tomatoes, chopped; 3 tbsp red palm oil; 900 ml water or stock; 200 g spinach or amaranth leaves, shredded; 1 scotch bonnet, whole and pricked; 1 stock cube; 1 tsp salt, to taste

Equatorial Guinea's forest stew, groundnut paste simmered with plantain and greens until thick, the Bantu kitchen under a Spanish colonial name

Origin: Bata and Río Muni, Equatorial Guinea

From the journey of Peanut.

Equatorial Guinea is the one Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa, and its kitchen is Bantu forest cooking wearing Spanish vocabulary. This groundnut and plantain stew is the everyday dish of Río Muni, the mainland province: peanut paste cooked down with onion, tomato, and palm oil until it thickens, with green plantain and forest greens simmered through it and fish or bushmeat when there is any. The plantain is not a substitute for anything. In the Gulf of Guinea forest belt it is a starch in its own right, planted around the compound and picked green, and a stew of this kind is built to be eaten with more plantain or with cassava rather than with rice. Fang, Bubi, and Ndowe traditions underlie all of it, and the Spanish layer is thinner than the colonial history suggests: mostly names, a few techniques, and the olive oil that sits in the cupboard beside the palm oil. The Atlantic fishery of the Bight of Biafra supplies the coast, and the island province of Bioko, with its volcanic soil, grows cacao that was once the colony's whole economy.

Ingredients

Base

200 g smooth unsweetened peanut butter
3 tomatoes, chopped

Starch

3 green plantains, peeled and cut into thick rounds

Protein

500 g chicken or firm white fish, in pieces

Aromatics

1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed

Fat

3 tbsp red palm oil

Liquid

900 ml water or stock

Greens

200 g spinach or amaranth leaves, shredded

Seasoning

1 scotch bonnet, whole and pricked
1 stock cube
1 tsp salt, to taste

Method

Oil your hands, top and tail the plantains, score the skin lengthways, and peel. Cut into rounds about 3 cm thick and hold in water.
Brown the chicken or fish briefly in the palm oil in a heavy pot and lift it out.
Soften the onion for eight minutes in the same oil, add the garlic, then the tomatoes, and cook until they collapse.
Slake the peanut butter with 300 ml of warm water until completely smooth, then pour it into the pot with the rest of the liquid, the stock cube, and the whole chilli.
Return the chicken, add the drained plantain, and simmer uncovered for thirty minutes, stirring regularly, until the plantain is tender and the sauce has thickened.
Stir in the greens and cook for a final eight minutes. If using fish, return it now.
Season, remove the chilli, and serve with boiled cassava, more plantain, or rice.

Notes

Green plantain, not banana and not ripe plantain. A yellowing one turns the stew sweet and is the wrong dish. The same combination of groundnut, palm oil, and forest greens recurs from Cameroon down to Angola under many names. Bushmeat and smoked fish are the traditional proteins; chicken is the practical modern one.

The Gastrographer

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control