PB-Jeebies

by Jenn Carbin

I love peanut butter: chunky, creamy, on apple and banana slices, with chocolate, cream cheese or honey. And there’s the best way of all, straight out of the jar, with a spoon. That’s not to be disrespectful of peanut butter’s first love, jelly (or, even better, jam) -- or its role in the fluffernutter, for those kids who can stomach anything involving marshmallow. Peanut butter and jelly makes as much gastronomic sense as wine and cheese.

But peanut butter in a savory dish, the way it's used in both Africa and the West Indies? Dishes featuring peanuts have always worked well -- Chinese and Southeast Asian cooks dust them over shrimp and spicy dishes. But peanut butter is a tougher sell, though intriguing.

In West Africa, where peanuts are found in just about everything and known as groundnuts (as in the Caribbean), cooks pound them into a paste and simmer it with a little oil, tomato paste, water and vegetables to make maafe, a peanut butter stew. Elhadji Ndiaye, a manager at Fatou & Fama, a Senegalese restaurant in West Philly that includes West Indian and American soul food on its menu, says some West African purists insist on putting okra and no other vegetables into a meat-garnished maafe. And many West Africans eat peanut butter-based stews a lot in the winter and very little in the summer, because "peanut butter keeps you warm," he explains.

Fatou offers lamb and chicken maafes as well as "peanut butter vegetables," which at Fatou is essentially a vegetarian version of maafe. Surprisingly subtly flavored, the stew includes just a smattering of tubers and green vegetables. It comes with rice and another side from a list of Caribbean and soul-food favorites, such as steamed cabbage and candied yams. A serving of peanut butter vegetables is warming and somewhat deep-flavored, but also plain, thin and a bit pricey at $9.95. The spiced lamb and chicken maafes ($8.95), served with just rice, are more interesting.

Jamaican Jerk Hut offers the satisfying vegetarian "spinach and groundnut," as both a side ($2.50) and as an entree with sides (small, $10; large, $12). This dish doesn't just taste of peanuts: Its smooth richness feels like peanut butter, and the slight ly bitter taste of the spinach plays off the richness (and balances the obvious fat content) of the peanut base beautifully.

Peanut butter still manages to rule.

Fatou & Fama, 4002 Chestnut St., 215-386-0700; Jamaican Jerk Hut, 1436 South St., 215-545-8644.