West African Peanut & Sweet Potato Stew (Slow Cooker)

Peanuts, also called groundnuts by some, especially in western Africa, were taken by the Portuguese to other parts of the world, including Africa, from areas of Brazil, and perhaps from Peru, in the early 1500s. Peanuts are really a type of pea, not a true nut. Sweet potatoes were another New World food product, and they were taken to other parts of the world, including West Africa, by the Spanish and the Portuguese. This wonderful stew is easily made in a slow cooker and then served with flatbread like naan or pita.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup chopped onion (you can also use scallions with part of their green, if you'd like)
2 to 4 hot chilies (I use serrano chilies), chopped (seeded, if you don't like much heat)
2 to 3 inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups chicken stock (if the stew is too thick later, add a little more chicken stock)
1 can (14.5 to 16 ounces) diced tomatoes, with juice
1 can (14 to 16 ounces) chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
3 cups kale (or collard greens), removed from stems, then chopped 

Put all ingredients into a slow cooker (crock pot), except the chickpeas, peanut butter and kale/collard greens. Cook on "high" for 90 minutes, then reduce to "low" and let cook for another 4 1/2 hours. 
During the last hour of cooking, add the peanut butter and gently stir to mix it into the stew, and then add the kale or collards (either of which will cook down pretty quickly) and the chickpeas and again gently stir to mix all ingredients together. If the stew is too thick for you, thin it out a little with more chicken stock at this time also.

WORD HISTORY:
Cola-This word goes back to the Niger-Congo languages,^ which have a large presence in Africa, including in part of West Africa (for example, in Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast), where the term was "kola/kolo," and it was used as the name for a tree and the nut from the tree, which contains caffeine and was used in beverages. "Apparently" the name spread through Spanish and Portuguese to South America and then elsewhere, but with the use of the Latin "c" for the ''k" sound used in some other languages, as both Spanish and Portuguese are Latin-based languages. The word was borrowed by English circa 1800, but the biggest boost to the word in English came in the 1880s in the United States with the invention of the brand name beverage "Coca-Cola," which used cola nuts in its preparation and which eventually became an internationally known drink and one of the world's best known brand names. This was followed not long thereafter by the brand name "Pepsi-Cola" and other drinks using cola nuts.    

^  The Niger-Congo family of languages includes many African languages and dialects, including Zulu, Swahili and Fulani. Niger-Congo is to these languages what Indo European is to, for example, English, German, Italian, Hindustani or Persian (and many others).

Indonesian Chicken

I'm calling this "Indonesian Chicken," as it is based upon some recipes I've seen from that island nation. It is a good dish for a slow cooker. By the way, Indonesia is a group of islands; that is, it is an archipelago. It consists of more than 17,000 islands, although many of the islands are uninhabited. The best known islands are Sumatra, Java, Bali and New Guinea, although only Western New Guinea is actually part of Indonesia. Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta is located on Java, and that island's name was applied to coffee from there, and this was taken by American English to eventually become a slang term for coffee in general, as "Java coffee" arrived at West Coast American ports. Much of Indonesia was a Dutch colony (called the Dutch East Indies) until the area was overrun and occupied by the Japanese during World War Two, and the end of that war brought Indonesian independence. How many Indonesians died as a result of the Japanese occupation is unclear, but it certainly seems to have been in the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even a couple of million. The long association between the Netherlands and Indonesia gave many influences to Dutch cuisine still in evidence to this day.

I highly recommend boneless chicken for this recipe, as when I first made this, I used whole chicken legs and it left small pieces of bone in the finished dish, and that's not fun.

Ingredients:

8 chicken thighs (preferably boneless) or whole chicken legs
1/2 cup ketjap manis (or substitute*)
1/4 cup water
1 heaping teaspoon sugar
4 garlic cloves, chopped
juice of 2 limes
6 green onions, chopped (with green)
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 chili pepper, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 3 tablespoons water
1/4 chopped parsley

Add everything, except the cornstarch and water and parsley to a slow cooker. Put on "high" for one hour, then turn the setting to "low" and cook for about another 3 to 5 hours. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and stir it in, as best you can. The liquid should begin to thicken almost immediately, but let everything cook for a few minutes before checking to see if the sauce has thickened enough. Serve with rice and with the parsley sprinkled on top.

* "Ketjap Manis" is Indonesian soy sauce, which is syrupy and sweet. Some supermarkets or Asian markets will likely have "ketjap manis," but the keyword here is, "some." You can substitute regular soy sauce with some molasses, or even brown sugar, cooked together for just a few minutes.

I had the chicken with rice, raw carrot pieces, tomato slices and fresh basil leaves...

WORD HISTORY:
Parsley-This is a compound word, with the first part related to the name "Peter," and the second part related to "celery," a word borrowed by English from French, which borrowed it from Italian, which got it from Latin, which got it from Greek (whew!). "Parsley" goes back to transliterated Greek "petrosélinon," which meant "parsley" (literally, "rock/stone parsley," because it grew on rocky slopes). This came from Greek "pétros," which meant "rock, stone," but where Greek got the word is unknown. The second part came from Greek "sélinon," which meant "celery." "Sélinon" is also a word of unknown history. Latin borrowed the compound Greek word as "petroselinum," which then became "petrosilium." This was borrowed into English as "petersilie," meaning, "parsley." Meanwhile, the Latin form was passed to Latin-based French in the abbreviated form "peresil," which heavily influenced the English form (essentially merged with it) in the 1300s. The other Germanic languages all use forms from the Latin; and in fact, German uses the same form as English once had, "Petersilie." 

Chili

 (Added note about chili and beans: 11-29-23)

"Chili" is a type of stew, based around "chilies," that certainly shows the Mexican influence on the cooking of Texas, and a dish which spread throughout the United States. It became a staple of corner diners and roadside restaurants and its popularity led to canned versions that came to be offered in supermarkets and neighborhood grocery stores. (Note: There are lots of "purists" who say chili doesn't have beans; in fact, there is even an episode of the popular comedy "The Big Bang Theory," where Sheldon, who was from Texas and played by Jim Parsons, tells everyone about chili not having beans.)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds Mexican-style chorizo (bulk or removed from casings)
2 cans (15 to 16 ounces each) dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1 cup chopped onion (red or yellow)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
(optional) 1 fresh jalapeño chili pepper, chopped
1 or 2 dried red chili peppers
2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dry adobo seasoning*
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon Spanish paprika (smoked)
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup ground tortilla chips
2 teaspoons brown sugar

In a crock-pot/slow cooker, add all of the ingredients, except the brown sugar, the ground tortilla chips and the kidney beans. Cook on high for 75 to 90 minutes, then turn setting to low or regular and cook for another 4 1/2 to 5 hours, or until the onion is tender. Add the brown sugar and the beans at the 3 1/2 hour mark, and stir. Add the ground tortilla chips at the 4 hour mark and stir well. You can serve the chili when done, OR, to be quite honest, I think this gives the chili a far better flavor, let the chili cool down, then refrigerate it until the next day. Heat the chili again, or heat individual servings and serve with crumbled Mexican cheese (I use "cotija," which is similar to "feta"), good bread or tortilla chips.

* To make your own abobo seasoning, this is the link:    http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/11/adobo-seasoning.html

Served with some crumbled "cotija" cheese as a topping and some bread/roll pieces on the side

WORD HISTORY:
Orchestra-This word goes back to Indo European "ergh," which had the notion of "put something into motion." This gave its transliterated Greek offspring "erkhomhai," which had the meaning "to go, to come, to move." This then produced transliterated Greek "orcheisthai," which meant "to dance," which gave Greek "orchestra," which meant, "the specific part of the stage used for singing and dancing by performers." Latin borrowed the word from Greek and English borrowed the word from Latin in the early 1600s, by which time the meaning had altered to "the part of a theater for the chorus." The meaning then altered to "area of a theater where musicians performed," and from that also came the name for "the musicians who performed."