Hawaiian Oxtail Soup

From Simply Recipes

From Simply Recipes

Serves 4

An odd ingredient, one that isn't readily accessible in the stores around here at least, is dried orange peel. Apparently you can buy it pretty easily in Hawaii. What I did for this ingredient is I used a vegetable peeler to strip off a long strip of peel (just the zest) from an orange. This I set on a shelf in my kitchen for a week to dry out. It worked great. I wondered why one would use the dried and not fresh orange peel and I think perhaps it's because of the long cook time; maybe the dried peel holds up better to long cooking? If I didn't think ahead to dry the peel, I would just use a couple teaspoons of orange zest instead.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs oxtails
• 1 strip dried orange peel (zest, not the pith)
• 2 star anise
• 1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced
• Salt, at least a tablespoon, more to taste
• 1/2 cup of shelled, skinned, raw peanuts (can sub roasted unsalted peanuts)
• 1/8 teaspoon chili pepper flakes (or more to taste)
• A handful of fresh mustard greens, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups, loosely packed)

Garnishes:

• Fresh cilantro, chopped
• Green onions, white and green parts, sliced on diagonal
• Freshly grated ginger

Method

1 Bring a large pot (5-quart), half filled with water, to a boil. Add the oxtails. Parboil for 30 minutes. Drain the pot. Rinse the oxtails in water. Trim the oxtails of any excess fat.



2 Return the oxtails to the pot. Cover with water by an inch. Add the orange peel, star anise, ginger, and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for one hour. Add the peanuts and simmer for 2-3 more hours, until the oxtail meat is tender and falling off the bone.



3 At the point, you can either skim the fat off the soup and proceed to the next step, or let the soup cool, and chill it overnight in the refrigerator. The next day the fat will have solidified and will be easy to pull up from the top of the soup. The flavors will also have had more of a chance to blend and be absorbed by the oxtails if you let the soup sit overnight.


4 Bring soup to a simmer. Add the chili pepper flakes and mustard greens. Cook for 5 more minutes, or until the mustard greens are tender.

Serve with garnishes of chopped fresh cilantro, green onions, and freshly grated ginger.

If you want, you can strip the meat off the bones before serving. We prefer the meat served bone-in, in which case you will want to provide a bowl for the bones.

African Chicken Peanut Stew

From Simply Recipes

From Simply Recipes

Serves 6-8

Use chicken legs, thighs or wings for this recipe. They have more flavor and will hold up better with the flavors of the stew than breast meat.

Ingredients

• 2-3 pounds chicken legs, thighs and/or wings
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large yellow or white onion, sliced
• A 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 6-8 garlic cloves, chopped roughly
• 2-3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup roasted peanuts
• 1 Tbsp ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
• Salt and black pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro

Method

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large soup pot set over medium-high heat. Salt the chicken pieces well, pat them dry and brown them in the oil. Don't crowd the pot, so do this in batches. Set the chicken pieces aside as they brown.
2. Sauté the onions in the oil for 3-4 minutes, stirring often and scraping any browned bits off the bottom of the pot. Add the ginger and garlic and sauté another 1-2 minutes, then add the sweet potatoes and stir well to combine.
3. Add the chicken, chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, peanut butter, peanuts, coriander and cayenne and stir well to combine. Bring to a simmer and taste for salt, adding more if needed. Cover the pot and simmer gently for 90 minutes (check after an hour), or until the chicken meat easily falls off the bone and the sweet potatoes are tender.
4. Remove the chicken pieces and set them in a bowl to cool, until cool enough to touch. Remove and discard the skin if you want, or chop it and put it back into the pot. Shred the meat off the bones and put the meat back in the pot.
5. Adjust the seasonings for salt and cayenne, then add as much black pepper as you think you can stand—the stew should be peppery. Stir in the cilantro and serve by itself, or with simple steamed rice.

1-2-3-4-5 Spareribs

1 part rice wine
2 parts sugar
3 parts vinegar
4 parts soy sauce
5 parts water