Surinamese peanut and tom-tom soup

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 chicken legs or drumsticks, but no skin: the soup needs the chicken fat
• vinegar
• 2 large onions
• Ground black pepper, to taste
• salt, to taste
• Margarine, for gilding the chicken (not oil paint)
• 1.5 liters of water
• 1 large leek, using only the white part
• 2 new onions
• One small tomato
• 1 to 2 cubes of chicken stock and/or Maggi seasoning
• 1/2 cup of Surinamese peanut butter, without added butter (preferably homemade)
• Sambal (chili paste), to taste
• 8 Jamaican hot peppers, added at the end of cooking.
• 1 to 2 stalks of celery, added towards the end of cooking
• 1 hot pepper, added towards the end of cooking (optional)
• 1 tablespoon of flour, optional
• 5 green plantains, for the tom-tom dish
• 1 tablespoon of salt, for cooking the bananas

Wash the chicken and lightly spray it with vinegar. Marinate it with the onions, black pepper, and salt, ensuring it is well absorbed. Ideally, prepare the marinade the day before and keep the chicken in the refrigerator overnight.

Lightly dredge the marinated chicken in flour, along with the onions from the marinade.

Wash and chop the leek, tomato, and new onion, then add them to boiling water with the bouillon cubes.

After about 10 minutes of cooking, when the vegetables are soft, taste and adjust the seasoning with a bouillon cube or a little salt.

Mix the peanut butter with the hot liquid, then add the fried chicken, without any of the cooking oil.

Cook the chicken for about 20 minutes, with or without the skin. If you wish to thicken the soup, add flour.

Turn off the heat, then add the Jamaican scotch bonnet peppers and celery last. If you like it spicy, add the whole “Madame Jeanette” pepper as well, without crushing it.

Boil the 5 green plantain bananas in water with 1 tablespoon of salt, then mash them in a large mixing bowl to form a dense ball. Place one or more small balls in each soup bowl.