This South Asian cuisine is simple to make and authentic, and it suits a variety of palates. Despite the strange ingredient combination, even people who are reluctant to try new flavors adore this one. Vegan-friendly!
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 cups uncooked brown rice
- 6 cups water
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large white onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
- 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 cup chunky natural peanut butter
Instructions
- Place rice and water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer until rice is tender and water has absorbed, about 30 minutes.
- Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion, and cook until soft and golden, stirring frequently. Add garlic and ginger, and cook until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, and season with cayenne pepper. Increase heat to medium, and bring to a gentle simmer. Stir in peanut butter and heat through. The mixture will thicken. Serve over rice.
Reviews
I liked it, and will probably make it again. I used crushed red pepper flakes (chili flakes) instead of cayenne. (Easier to digest, I find.) But I can see how the combination of peanut butter and tomatoes would not be to everybody’s liking. To appreciate such a combination, it probably helps to be very fond of peanut butter, or peanuts generally. UPDATE: On a depleted-pantry day, I totally riffed on this recipe, substituting a pound of large elbows for the rice, two 8-ounce cans of “no salt added” tomato sauce, a half cup of peanut butter, and light sprinkles of onion powder, garlic powder and ground ginger for the fresh ingredients. And I used 2 tablespoons of canola oil (mainly for the omega-3’s). While the elbows were boiling, I nuked the sauce ingredients. Thinned it afterwards with pasta cooking water. Garnished with chili flakes. I liked it! Quicker, easier and cheaper, too! Still a recipe for peanut butter fiends, though.
I made this recipe as written, and it was inedible. Not recommended unless many modifications are made.
No matter what I did, it refused to stop tasting like canned tomatoes. The flavors wouldn’t meld, and the texture was weird. It was aggressively bland. I tried adding extra ginger, extra cayenne, and a few other things.
I added zucchini with the garlic which seemed to be nice addition. Tasty meal and easy to make
We liked it. We used natural almond butter because that’s what we had on hand. We followed the advice of other reviewers and used less than a cup of the nut butter. In our opinion, the ginger can be reduced a little bit, and salt should be added for taste.
I tried this with Jasmine rice. I live in Japan and good brown rice is hard to find. Worked like a charm though and everyone loved it. Nice idea thanks.
I agree with the peanut butter comments, it did overpower the dish. I added 3/4c and it was still too much. Also agree with cooking the rice according to package. I travel to different regions India frequently and adore the different cultures and their regional dishes. This unfortunately was not reminiscent of that to me at least. Maybe I needed more ginger and less pb. I did add more cayenne.
We are avoiding sugar for 3 weeks so I threw about half a cup of raw peanuts in our bullet and used that instead of peanut butter. I used about 1 T fresh ginger and 1.5 tsp of powdered ginger. This was very delicious and we put it all over some spinach as someone else suggested. It was not too spicy at all; I would probably add a little bit more the next time.
Easy and inexpensive to make, but not for me. Looks unappetizing and I won’t make again.
1 cup of peanut butter was way too much.
This recipe might be worthy of two stars if you were to cut the amount of peanut butter in half. Unfortunately, I didn’t, so it was nothing more than a waste of time. If you plan on taking this recipe as it is, have your trash can nearby, because that’s where you’re likely to dump the entire meal once you’ve tasted the finished product.
I wanted a thicker stew so I used 3 cups of vegetable broth instead of six cups of water and only used a quarter of an onion. I also used about 1/8 cup of soy sauce and 1/8 cup of raw honey and crushed red pepper flakes and a few sprinkles of curry powder. It tasted like it was from a thai restaurant. I poured it over cooked shrimp and it was delicious!
This was really yummy, although rich. Per some other reviewers, I added in a can of drained chickpeas. Since I thought it was really “thick”, I added in a large, diced tomato as well. Served with rice, sprinkled with cilantro, and hubby liked it! Next time, I will halve the amount of peanut butter.
OK, the pinkish color of this dish is a little weird but my family, for the most part, enjoyed this dish. The kids went back for seconds. The biggest complaint was that it was way too thick. We used Adam’s All Natural Peanut Butter. Next time I want to try adding a bit of coconut milk as one reviewer suggested. Looking forward to trying this again.
This was fantastic – I modified it a little. I added a heaping 1/3 tsp of cayenne pepper – and 3/4 cup of peanut butter. It was very, very good. I’m going to make this again for sure.
Really yummy! I skipped the cayenne since I have 2 smally kids but it was still so good. I also added a splash of soy sauce once I turned off the heat. I served over rice with FRESH basil on top. Its a keeper. Thanks!!!
This is a very weird dish. It’s very fatty and oily because of the peanut butter, which makes it feel kind of decadent to eat. The flavor is just… well, it seems very Americanized. It was edible, but I won’t make it a second time.
I’m glad the other reviewers were right, this recipe was an unexpected combination, but quite delicious. I made a few changes though, I added chickpeas as someone else suggested and I think next time I will cut down the peanut butter by almost half. It overpowers the tomatoes a bit more than I would have liked.
This tasted simple and uninteresting (exactly like tomatoes & peanut butter). It also looked pretty disgusting. The red tomatoes and brown PB created a pink colour that was very unappetizing.
Great recipe. I feel it needs 3 things officially added to it: 1-2 tsp of salt, a tbsp chopped coriander, and chopped green onions to garnish. Otherwise even the picky eaters at my house loved it! (The above are things I added)
I was skeptical about this one because i didn’t think the flavors would go well at all, but I very, very pleased with this dish! I made the rice they way I normally make it, and I increased the cayenne pepper because I like my food very spicy. Other than that, I followed the recipe to the letter and got a very filling, very flavorful dinner. Thanks so much, Hoolie! I’ll be making this one often