Monday, April 02, 2007

African Chicken

Work has been crazy for the past few weeks and what little capacity my brain cells have were totally exhausted there. I have finally realized why I will never make it as a professional writer. (Well, one of the reasons, anyway). You have to use your brain to write, and I guess my poor little cells are too delicate to put in more than a couple of hours a day. By the time I got home in the evening it took all of my concentration just to sit on the couch and watch endless reruns of the "Law and Order" syndicates. Last Monday I even forgot to watch "24," but I guess that's as much an indictment of how crappy this season is as an indication of how overtired my brain is.

But I wasn't even knitting much, and that's a definite indication that something is wrong. And then I stopped cooking and then I stopped eating well and the dishes started to pile up and it was not such a pretty sight, I can tell you. But work has finally eased up and I've had a chance to pull things together somewhat and get back into the kitchen.

Something else that usually happens when I get overly stressed is that I start thinking about comfort food, and old recipes that I used to make all the time but haven't thought of in years. I don't know what made me think of African Chicken, but once I did I knew I had to make it. It was the first recipe I had ever seen that called for peanut butter in a savory application (nope, no Thai food yet) and I was skeptical, but intrigued enough to give it a try

I liked it so much that for a while it became my go-to dish when I had company for dinner. The sauce thickens into a kind of paste that is delicious with brown rice. It is easy to make, with few ingredients that come together for a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts

I have had this recipe for so long that I don't remember where I found it. I think it was a magazine, or maybe the weekly food section in the Austin paper. I'm pretty sure it wasn't from a cookbook. It was long before the internet so it never occurred ot me that I might need the attribution. I did a quick Google search and found an unattributed version of it here

I wasn't sure I wanted to post it here without attributions, but since it's already out there anyway I will go ahead, with apologies to the original source. It's too good a recipe not to share.
Home Cookin Chapter: Poultry

African Chicken
Serves 6

4 lb. chicken, cut into pieces
2 Tbsp oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
15-oz. can tomato sauce

Arrange chicken in large baking dish. In 10" skillet heat oil; add onion and garlic; cook until wilted. Stir in peanut butter, coriander and red pepper flakes. Gradually stir in tomato sauce and vinegar. Pour over chicken.

Bake uncovered in 400-degree oven until chicken is tender--about 50 minutes.

Exported from Home Cookin 5.4 (www.mountain-software.com)

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