How to make Uber-Spicy Chicken Stew

I decided to cook some chicken this time around instead of meat like I've been doing the past few weeks. Time for a change. I made the stew pretty spicy, you can reduce the amount of scotch bonnet peppers if you're not into heat or don't like it too hot.

7/19/09***I tweaked this recipe a bit; I just fried the chicken in the top pic (cook blended peppers, fry the chicken, then add to blended peppers with some of the chicken stock)***

Ingredients:

1 Nigerian chicken cut into s/m pieces (from your local African grocer)
2 bay leaves
2-3 tsps curry powder
2 tsps ground red pepper
2 tsps Goya adobo seasoning (from your local African grocer)
3 Knorr cubes
1 s/m red onion
1 large red bell pepper
1 m tomato
4 scotch bonnet peppers or rodo
1 clove garlic
Ginger (about the size of a clove of garlic)

Turn your stove on medium heat
Put chicken into a medium sized pot
Add the seasonings and work into the chicken
Put pot on stove and let chicken sweat for about 20 minutes
Add 1/2 cup water and continue to boil for another 15 minutes

Halve the bell pepper, tomato and onion and then cut into quarters
Put into blender
Add the scotch bonnet peppers, garlic and ginger
Add 1/2 cup of water (to make blending easier)
Blend ingredients until liquefied (w/ some chunks...optional)
Pour blended mixture into boiling chicken
Boil for another 40 minutes on medium heat (cover w/ lid so there are no splatters)
Check to see if chicken is soft enough, if so, turn off heat and let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving.

Nigerian chicken is normally harder than the regular chicken you get from grocery stores as Jewel-Osco and the like. (It's literally called 'Nigerian chicken' at the African store here) It takes a much longer time to get soft, you could add garlic and onions to speed this up a bit. I prefer the chicken to be really soft, so I tend to let it boil longer, but just check often and if it's soft enough for you, you can take off the heat as long as the pepper is cooked through.

Conversely, you could boil the pepper in a separate pot, but I was cooking other things and didn't feel like the extra step, so I just did everything in one pot. If you wanted to boil the pepper separately, just heat the pot and add 1/2 cup of any oil of your choice, then add the pepper and let it boil for about 30 minutes. Once it's done, pour the cooked pepper mixture into the cooked boiled chicken.

Also, if you don't like it so hot, just add less of the scotch bonnet pepper...maybe 1 or 2.
This can be eaten with rice, plantain, beans etc.

Enjoy...