Stone Soup Recipe #1 Meaty Peanut Butter Soup

For those who are unaware of the Stone Soup Challenge I have invited member to provide me with ingredients (via comment), to prepare a stone soup.  I challenged myself to make a few soup recipes using all of the ingredients provided to me via comment.  Most of the ingredients wee pretty simple, but some presented certain challenges.

Here is the first soup I came up with for the Stone Soup ingredients.  For lack of a better name I have named it Meaty Peanut Butter Soup.  I chose to do this soup first to try to use up some of the more difficult ingredients. For the original article and the complete ingredient list you can go here:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977363732&nav=MyGather#comments

The meats used in this soup are all what I would call temperamental and are more unusual.  These are meats that if not prepared properly can come out disasterously.  They all had to be treated differently before adding to the soup so instructions for each of the meats are given in the beginning of the recipe and the recipe should be followed in the order that it is presented. 

This is not an easy soup to make by any means, but I think you will find it flavorful and a nice way to serve these meats.  Here is the recipe:

Meaty Peanut Butter Soup

Mutton Preparation:

1 pound mutton (sliced into thin slices and small pieces)

¼ cup olive oil

½ teaspoon finely chopped summer savory

1 teaspoon minced garlic

½ teaspoon of finely chopped lemon grass

In a glass bowl add the olive oil, summer savory, minced garlic, and lemon grass, stir all of the ingredients together. Add the sliced mutton and stir to coat with marinade.  Allow the mutton marinade in the refrigerator for 1 hour.  Remove it from the refrigerator and let it continue to marinate for ½ hour at room temperature.

 Venison Preparation

1 pound Ground Venison

Chinese 5 Spice seasoning to taste

3 finely chopped scallions

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon ground or finely chopped ginger

1 egg

Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all of the ingredients together by hand, roll into meat balls.  Fry in a pan until cooked through. 

Oxtail Preparation 

Three Oxtails

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of peanut butter

In a frying pan pour the olive oil and let it heat up a bit.  Once it has gotten hot enough, but not scalding, add the peanut butter to the pan.  Take a whisk, and quickly whisk the olive oil and the peanut butter until the peanut butter is well blended in.  Add the oxtails.  Cook them for 4 minutes on each side, remove from pan.  You are only braising them not cooking them through. 

Do not wash or soak pan right away.  Save it along with all of its little meat bits to use for the soup base.

Soup Base

Use the same pan you used to braise the ox tails

½ of a medium onion diced to desired size

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 finely diced leek

¼ cup finely sliced celery

½ green pepper finely sliced

¼ red pepper finely sliced

1 small seeded and diced Jalepeno

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 13 ¾ sized can of vegetable broth

4 cups water

Pinch of Tamarind

Pinch of Saffron

Pinch of curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

If necessary add a little more olive oil to the pan, add all of the vegetables and cook them over low heat just until they begin to sweat (or begin to cook down).  Add the peanut butter, brown sugar and the soy sauce to the pan, combine ingredients in pan, and stir constantly until the peanut butter begins to get soft and a bit on the liquid side.

Putting It All Together to Make the Soup

Transfer all of the vegetables to a large soup pot or large sauce pan.  Add the vegetable broth, and water.  At this time you can add your ox tails.  Simmer the four about ½ half hour.  After one half hour add your mutton slices, and continue to simmer for ½ hour, after one half hour.  After another half hour add your venison meatballs, and allow to simmer for one half hour more. 

Before serving remove the oxtails, if all of the meat has not already fallen off of the bone, you may pull it off and add it to the soup. 

Serve:  I would say garnish with some crushed peanuts, but I think I have already hit my 5 additional ingredient limit.  So I will say garnish with a tiny bit of cilantro.