Birthday Peanut Sauce

I’ve just wasted the last half hour combing through my blog archives looking for my peanut sauce recipe. I can’t believe I have never posted it. But apparently not. I know I promised to post this Sunday Night and I’m Very Sorry. I came home Sunday to recline lavishly on the couch and watch E open vast arrays of presents. She received many things I have always longed for. She already has An American Girl Doll from her last birthday so this year she needed a large cabinet to store all the clothes, plus new outfits. I could list everything but its making me tired thinking about where we’re going to put it all.

So here’s the Peanut Sauce (enough for 20, half adults, half children. If you want to serve less people half everything But, its worth making a big vat and freezing it in smaller containers because its So Delicious).

One jar creamy natural peanut butter (No Sugar added! No nothing added if possible). I use smuckers because that’s what we can get.
2 large onions
2 cloves garlic
1 inch fresh ginger grated or 1 tablespoon powdered ginger
6 to 8 fresh tomatoes or 1 large can chopped or crushed tomato (no seasoning added)
4 to 8 cups of stock, depending on how soupy you want it
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 packages chicken (I use thighs usually, or I buy a whole chicken and dismember it myself. You can cut the chicken very small if you’re feeding a lot of people, or you can put in large pieces. I used to brown the chicken before I put it in, but lately I haven’t taken the time, and honestly, I can’t taste the difference.)
Optional: liberal squeeze of fresh lime at the end, liberal addition of cream

sweat the onions, garlic and ginger with oil or butter
add the peanut butter and coat the onion
add the tomato paste and fresh or canned tomato
let it all blend together. Season with salt and pepper (and red pepper if you’re not feeding children). Add the chicken and stock. Bring it all to a boil and let it simmer until thick and glorious, re-seasoning as necessary. This time I ran out of stock and actually added some whole milk to make up the difference and it was almost my best batch ever. Basically you want it very liquid at first and let it simmer down, thickening as it goes. Obviously, if you reside in Africa and can get your hands on some Sumbala (sp?) that would be perfect, but I have no idea how you would do that in America.

If you’re attempting to make this and something here is unclear please do comment or email. This is our favorite family food, all my kids eat it, but given that its ‘foreign’ you’d want to get it right or you might give up (which would be so sad). On Sunday most everyone was very skeptical but then I had about 1/2 a cup left over.
Enjoy!