Mama Seedorf's peanut soup (sort of)

This soup is staple food for the Dutch national football team: no game is being played without this soup being served beforehand, apparently. The recipe is developed by the national team's cook, Johan Klein Gebbink, in collaboration with the mother of Clarence Seedorf (=football player).

The recipe calls for chicken breast, but how you can make a tasty chicken stock with chicken breast is beyond me. I used the carcass of a chicken, chock-full of bones and fat.

Make a clear stock from the chicken carcass, water (3 liters), onion, leek, bay leaf and mace:

Simmer for 3-4 hours.





Prepare the lemon grass and chili pepper by crushing the lemon grass and deseeding the peppers.

Heat oil in a pot, fry onion (cut finely) and add the banana's and plantain (bakbanaan), also: cut very finely.



Pour in the chicken stock and a jar of peanut butter. Add lemon grass and chili peppers. Simmer for up to 2,5 hours. Stir frequently: the peanut butter will stick to the pot.



In the last 15 minutes you can add sweet potato (optional). Season with black pepper and salt. Taste and season with brown sugar if you want the soup a bit more sweet (recommended).

In the original recipe the soup is seasoned with an enormous amount of sweet chili sauce (the kind used for Vietnamese spring rolls) and ginger sirup. To me this seems like adding Heinz tomato ketchup to a fine bolognese sauce. I skipped both.

Before serving remove the lemon grass and add shredded celery leaf. If there is enough meat on the chicken carcass add it to the soup. If you want more meat, boil chicken breast in the chicken stock and add it to the soup, shredded.


Ingredients

Surinamese peanut butter (Faja Lobi: Pindakaas Trafasie, spicy!):


Banana or ripe plantain:


Plantain (bakbanaan):


Chicken carcass (this amount for 1 euro!):


Lemon grass:


Chili pepper:


Leek:


Onion:


Leaf celery:


Sweet potato:

Heriheri

Old Suriname dish dating back to the time of slavery. What does heriheri mean? Heri as an adj. means 'all' or 'whole' (From Dutch. Etym: heel) but I'm not sure whether heriheri has the same meaning. It could mean something like 'a complete meal'.


Drawing: John Gabriel Stedman

Prepare 500 gram bakkeljauw.

See how to prepare bakkeljauw in pictures.

Peel and cut one green (unripe) plantain, one ripe plantain, two fresh cassava and two sweet potato in smaller pieces (a little bigger than the size of your thumb). Plantain is called bakbanaan or kookbanaan in Dutch.

Boil water and add salt, first the green plantain, then the ripe plantain, cassava and (last) sweet potato. The green plantain should be cooked longer, say 30 minutes, the cassava, nappi and sweet potato is cooked in 20 minutes, or even a little less, the ripe plantain around 10 minutes.

Why green and ripe banana? They both taste differently.

Serve with bakkeljauw, hard boiled egg and zuur (pickles)*. I also found nappis as an ingredient, a Suriname root vegetable. Cook nappis together with plantain etc. To get some sort of sauce add some extra water when making bakkeljauw. The next day left overs can be baked in oil with some garlic, chili pepper and salt.

*) Surinaams zuur (pickles)
Cut cucumber, red onion and Surinamese pepper (adjoema or madam jeanette) in half rings, small strips or length wise. Mix some water with two tablespoons sugar, dissolve sugar in water by heating it. Add 250 ml vinegar. Cool. Add cucumber, red onion, pepper, salt, pimento, black pepper, fresh ginger and cloves. Instead of sugar Suriname people use 'Chinese suiker' (Chinese sugar). This is the artificial sweetener sacharine. Chinese sugar is sold in powder or small grains. (Another recipe)

Guide to the ingredients:

Green and ripe plantain


Cassava


Sweet potato


Surinamese sweet potato (expensive at 7,50 euro per kilo)


Nappi in Sranang Tongo, no idea how they're named in English, are these yams?


Madame jeanette pepper or adjoema, they are so similar. I believe these are adjoema. Adjoema (available in yellow and red) are more hot than madam jeanette


Bakkeljauw, salted pollock


Prepared bakkeljauw


Surinaams zuur (pickled cucumber and onion)

Fladder

Fladder is a Surinamese creole delicacy. It's beef tripe boiled in a stock made from madam Jeanette peppers and some greens. It's incredibly tasty but finding a recipe proves difficult because few people (outside Surinam) like it.

I couldn't find a photo but in this video clip called Boriman (Sranang Tongo for 'cook') you see a pot with fladder at 0:50 minutes. Never mind the cocaine.

Update 18/09/10: Went to Dappermarkt and ordered a small (4 euro) fladder, vleesworst, bloedworst and very spicy yellow pepper. In the stock there were no greens but there was quite a lot of star anise.



I found just one poorly written recipe on a forum.

Wash the tripe. Doesn't say how. Clean with vinegar?

Add water to a big pot and bring to a boil. Add salt, bay leaf, onion, celeriac leaf and "other" soup vegetables, black pepper, ordinary (?) pepper, stock cube (possibly Maggi) and pepper (presumably madam Jeanette).

Add meat stock, tripe and simmer on a low fire for a long time.

The recipe doesn't mention any quantities.

Traditionally fladder is cooked with Suriname vleesworst (meat sausage) and bloedworst (blood sausage). Both sausages should not boil otherwise the skin might burst. Add at the last moment (if used).

I did find the recipe for Suriname vleesworst:

1 kilo minced meat (half beef, half pork), 2 speklapjes met zwoerd (thick slab of bacon), 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, fresh pepper (chili), 4 twigs celeriac leaf, 1 egg, 5 slices of old bread soaked in milk, 2 beef stock cubes, 2 teaspoons salt, 4 teaspoons sugar, black pepper, ajinomoto, pigs intestines.

Clean intestines in vinegar and run though water.

Fry onion, garlic, pepper, celerica leaf. Cool.

Mince speklap, mix with: minced meat, spices (stock cube, salt, sugar, black pepper and ajinomoto), egg, bread and onion mixture.

Fill intestines with meat mixture and steam 30 to 50 minutes.

Note: Ajinomoto is a Japanese brandname of monosodium glutamate, a flavour enhancer.

Komkommer op zuur

1 stevige komkommer
100 ml water
100 ml natuurazijn
1 eetlepel suiker
5 pimentkorrels
5 kruidnagels
mespuntje zout
mespuntje peper
evt. een madame Jeannette peper

bron

Doesn't taste as good as I sometimes get from a Surinamese take-away. Need to adjust this recipe.

Bakkeljauw

Bakkeljauw is basically salted cod. It does need a little preparation though.

This recipe is for half a kilo of salted cod. You can use the much cheaper pollock (coalfish; Dutch: witte koolvis).

Wash in cold water to remove salt. Try to remove as much of the skin as possible. Cook the cod for 15 minutes, cool and remove the bones. Flake the cod and set apart.

Fry in some vegetable oil:

1 onion, cut in very small pieces
2 tomato's, cut very finely
1 table spoon of tomato puree (for color)
1 or 2 fresh hot chili peppers, mashed
2 gloves of garlic, mashed

Add the cod/pollock flakes and fry for another 10 minutes. Season with black pepper. Keep in the fridge for about a week.
Since this is a Surinamese recipe this works best with Surinamese peppers like adjoema or madam jeanette.

Bakkeljauw can be eaten with rice and even tastes great in a tortilla (Spanish omelette).