Soup

So, a few months ago my friend Daniella made this great peanut soup (I think her recipe was probably from Moosewood, but I am not sure). Inspired by her soup, I set out to make something like it the other day. Cooking a new dish here for me is pretty rare, as is most cooking here for me. I can do a decent red spaghetti sauce, Mexican food, and tomato soup, but beyond that, well, meals require that you are able to read the labels in the grocery store.

Anyway, I combed the internet for recipes, learning that peanut soup is also called West African groundnut soup sometimes. There were a lot of recipe choices, so I used a sort of composite recipe from several sources. To my surprise, the soup was actually pretty good and filling and didn’t taste at all like Thai peanut sauce (the way I’d feared any warm peanut-y dish would).

If you want to play along at home, here’s my recipe:
2 tbsp cooking oil (any kind will do)
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6-7 mushrooms, chopped
½ tsp cayenne powder
2 potatoes peeled and cubed
¼ of kabocha squash, chopped (I think any squash would do, as would yams)
¼ of a cabbage, chopped (I used purple, but green probably looks nicer)
1 cup apple or apricot juice
3 cups tomato juice (I think this is crucial for the texture)
5 tbsp chopped cilantro or parsley
2 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1 celery rib
½ cup unsweetened peanut or almond butter (crunchy gives nice texture!)
2-3 tbsp fresh chopped basil

1. In a large soup/stockpot, cook the onions in oil over medium heat until translucent
2. Add the bell peppers, garlic, mushrooms, and cayenne, cook 1-2 more minutes
3. Add the potato, squash, cabbage, and ½ the apple/apricot juice. Stir to mix, put lid on, turn heat to medium, and leave at medium for ~20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Your goal here is to start softening the potatoes, squash and cabbage by steaming/near-boiling them, so if the apple/apricot juice runs dry, add more.
4. Add the remaining apple/apricot juice, the tomato juice, ginger, cilantro/parsley, and celery rib. Put lid back on, turn heat to med-hi, and let cook for ~10 minutes.
5. Stir in peanut butter until mostly incorporated (this isn’t that easy at first!). Turn heat to lowest setting and let cook for ~35 minutes or until the sweet potatoes and cabbage are soft.
6. Taste to adjust seasonings. This is important because saltiness may vary greatly depending on your peanut/almond butter. Also, at this point, I wanted a spicier soup and added more cayenne and some red pepper flakes. [It occurs to me that if you wanted to add cubed tofu, you could probably do it at this phase]
7. Remove the celery rib, top with the basil and enjoy!