Nkatenkwan is the groundnut (peanut) soup credited in Ghana to the Hausa and enjoyed nationwide — chicken or meat simmered in a deep peanut broth. Rich and warming, it is Sunday food served over rice balls or fufu.
Velvety and full-bodied, it coats the spoon with roasted-peanut depth balanced by tangy tomato and a slow scotch-bonnet heat. The meat falls apart tender and the broth is at once nutty, savoury and gently sweet. Ladled over soft rice balls, it is the definition of Sunday comfort.
Peanut butter emulsifies into the watery broth as it simmers, thickening the soup and releasing its oils, which carry roasted, savoury flavour. Long simmering melds the chilli, tomato and meat into a unified, rounded depth.
Variations
with chicken (akoko nkatenkwan), with goat or oxtail, with boiled eggs added, made with garden eggs and mushrooms
On the Palate
Where Nkatenkwan (Groundnut Soup) sits in the Ghanaian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 5
How it's made
8 steps · 75 min active
- 110 min
Season chicken or goat with salt, onion and ginger and brown lightly in a pot.
- 225 min
Add chopped tomato, onion, scotch bonnet and water, then simmer until the meat is tender.
- 35 min
Loosen peanut butter with warm broth until smooth and lump-free.
- 43 min
Stir the peanut butter into the simmering pot and lower the heat.
- 535 min
Simmer gently, stirring often so it does not catch, for 30 to 40 minutes.
- 63 min
Skim off the orange oil that rises to the surface as it cooks.
- 73 min
Adjust salt and heat, and thin with water to your preferred body.
- 82 min
Serve hot over omo tuo rice balls or with fufu.
