Western Africa

My next stop was to Burkina Faso. This is a Western African country. Rather than trying to come up with something specific to Burkina Faso, I decided to cook food that would represent Western Africa. There are differences between the countries; but, with enough similarity for me to find something I liked. I decided to make peanut soup.

While I prepared the rice, I diced 2 large onions, a green bell pepper and a red bell pepper. Also a large sweet potato was peeled, and diced. A couple inches of ginger root was peeled and sliced. I used a can of crushed tomatoes, with the juice. All of this was cooked with a little oil in a large soup pan. After 5 minutes, I added a couple tablespoons of crushed garlic. This was cooked for 5 more minutes. Then, I put in 4 cups of water.

The above was cooked for 25 minutes. Then, I added about 4 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter. You can put in more or less. I prefer more. While this was cooking, I threw in some salt, freshly ground black pepper and cayenne pepper. I don't generally make exact measurements when cooking this type of food. personally, I like hot food; so, I put a lot in...stirred it...tasted it...and put more in. The amount you use is purely a matter of taste. About this time, the rice was done; so, I threw that in there too. If you want, you can throw in a cake of soft tofu and green onions. I did not. You will find that the more peanut butter you use, the thicker will be your soup. Mine ended up being a thick stew. In fact, I could have put on a plate instead of a bowl.

I ate this with lamb that was spiced hot, using salt, pepper, cayenne and minced garlic. I put about half a teaspoon of garlic on each lamb chop. This was broiled for about seven minutes. The inside was very red, and warm.

I love...love...LOVE the peanut soup. I think you will too.