Maafe is a very popular chicken stew in West Africa which is basically mean peanut stew or sauce. Chicken cooked in spicy and creamy peanut sauce with cabbage, tomatoes and carrots. This stew is warm and so comforting, best served with couscous or bread. The broth is fully flavored with ginger, garlic, onion, tomatoes, thyme, curry powder and cabbage. There is a few variations of this recipe, some people add roots vegetables, some add okra or green cabbage or other kinds of greens. It depends upon you what you want to add. I had purple cabbage in my refrigerator, so I added that and it was still delicious. I used instant pot for this chicken stew. The result was pretty quick and chicken was juicy and fall of the bone .
The recipe usually calls for skin on chicken but I have used bone in, skinless chicken just to cut down the fat. But if you have skin on chicken, then brown the chicken on both sides first. Then take out the chicken from the pan and prepare your sauce and when it is done, add the chicken back into the sauce and let it cook until it is completely done .
Chicken Maafe / West African Chicken Stew Recipe
Course: MainCuisine: AfricanDifficulty: Medium8
servings15
minutes55
minutesChicken maafe is curry made from chicken cooked in spicy and creamy peanut sauce with cabbage, tomatoes and carrots.
Ingredients
2 lbs of bone-in chicken thighs (I used skinless)
1/2 cup of peanut butter
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1.5 Tbsp of ginger, chopped finely
1.5 Tbsp of garlic, peeled and chopped finely
1 can of tomatoes(14 oz), crushed
2 medium carrots
1/2 of medium cabbage, cut into 1inch pieces
2 tsp of fried thyme
2 tsp of smoked paprika
2 tsp of curry powder
Chili pepper to taste(scotch bonnet or jalapenos or red pepper flakes)
salt to taste
1 Tbsp of oil
Directions
- If you have time, marinate chicken with lemon juice and salt.
- Heat oil in a pan and add ginger, garlic and onions and saute till the onions are translucent. (If using instant pot, saute it on medium heat for 5 mins)
- Mix in the tomatoes with its juice with chillies and let it cookek for another 6-8 minutes
- Add curry powder, thyme , paprika and mix well.
- Add chicken , carrot and cabbage with required salt and mix well.
- Mix in the peanut butter with a cup of water and let it cook for 40-45 minues over low-medium heat.(In instant pot, pressure cook it on high for 8 minutes.)
Notes
- Serve Maafe or West African chicken stew with couscous or good sour dough bread.
