Chicken Palava (African peanut stew)

This is African peanut stew #2 on this website. This is another recipe from my new favorite cooking blog, Kayotic, and of course there are beautiful pictures to accompany her blog post. My favorite aspect of this African chicken stew as opposed to the other one featured on my site, is the spinach. I love spinach, and it adds some nice color to this otherwise brown dish. Serve with hot white rice.

Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken fillets, cut into small cubes.
  
• 1 pretty large onion
• 1 large red bell pepper
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 2 big, juicy tomatoes
• 1/2 pound fresh spinach, chopped very coarsely.
  
• 4 tbsp (peanut) oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp chili powder (hot)
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 5 tbsp peanut butter
• 2 cups chicken broth
• extra brown sugar
• pepper
• salt

Instructions

1. Dice the onion, peel the tomatoes, grate the garlic, and chop the bell pepper.
2. Combine the oil with the sesame oil, pinch of salt, loads of pepper, chili powder (the hot version), dried thyme, ground ginger, brown sugar, and garlic. Mix it with the chicken and let it marinade for 15 minutes while you move on with the recipe.
3. Cook the chicken until it loses its rawness and add the onion and bell pepper. Cook everything for 5 more minutes.
4. Spoon the peanut butter in there, pour in the chicken broth and add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer, over low heat, for 20 to 25 minutes without the lid on.
5. After 20 minutes the sauce will have cooked down and thickened a bit. Season with salt, pepper, chili powder and brown sugar to taste.
   
6. Stir in the spinach and as soon as it wilts, turn off the heat.

Serves 8. Eat this stuff.