I have a slightly shameful confession to make; I don’t like peanut butter.
Having grown up in a nation of (for the most part) ardent peanut butter fanatics, people who would (and often do) eat the stuff straight from the jar, I’ve always felt like a little bit of a weirdo for my dislike of this North American staple. Perhaps weirder still is the fact that I really like other nut butters, my dislike is peanut butter specific, though peanuts them selves I don’t mind. Also weird is that there seem to be two glorious exceptions to my peanut butter dislike: satay sauce, and creole peanut soup!
There’s a wonderful restaurant in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, called Magnolia’s Grill. It’s this charming friendly place where the joyful food is rivaled only by the atmosphere. When I was first living in Lunenburg I kept hearing about Magnolia’s and the one recipe that everyone raved about in particular was their Creole peanut soup. Given my feelings about peanut butter you can imagine my initial opinion on this soup, I was by no means inclined to try it. But as everyone kept going on about it my curiosity grew until I finally decided to bite the bullet and try it myself, after all what’s one time. From the first spicy, velvety mouthful I was a complete addict. I could not get enough of this magnificent soup and returned frequently, to say the least.
But like many good things, it was just too good to be true. My soup bliss came crashing down around me one day when, upon asking about the veg-friendliness of another of their soups, the server stated “No, our only vegetarian soup is the tomato.” Dun-dun-dun!!! Unbeknownst to me I had been in a state of blissful ignorance scoffing bowlfuls of delicious soup made with…chicken stock.
Though I was forced to immediately go cold turkey (or chicken as the case may be) and give up the delicious creole peanut soup of dreams, (Magnolia’s tomato soup is also utterly delicious, not to mention their desserts, so the devastation was not that long lasting) I determined that I would again, one day, taste it’s magnificent spicy peanutiness.
The problem with this plan is that when you don’t like peanut butter, and nor does anyone in your house hold, you don’t tend to buy it, so it turned out to be a bit of a long term mission. But finally with our last shop I decided that the time had come to bring this creole joy into my life once more. And so at lunch today, after 7 years of abstinence, and with the help of some veggie stock in place of chicken, I once again reveled in the velvety spiciness of Creole peanut soup.
It is as good as I’d remembered.
- 1 large brown onion, chopped
- 3 green finger chillies, chopped
- 1Tbsp coconut oil
- 2Tbsp brown rice flour
- 1L vegetable stock
- Good pinch of cayenne
- 100g smooth peanut butter
- 75mL almond milk, or milk of your choice
- In a large pot of medium heat, heat the oil and then add the onion and chillies. Sautee, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until the onions are soft.
- Add the flour and stir until the onion mix is well coated, and then stir in the stock. Lower the temperature, cover and leave to simmer for 30 minutes.
- After the half hour remove from the heat, and blitz the mixture until it’s smooth. Stir in the peanut butter and milk and season to taste. Top with chopped fresh herbs or spring onions and serve.