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When I was a little girl, I loved to watch my Nannie (maternal Grandmother) cook. I would watch carefully as she moved effortlessly around her small kitchen choosing herbs and spices from jars, butchering meat, and harvesting the vegetables for the delicious meals and bread she'd make three times a day.
 When I was about eleven, I asked her if she'd teach me to cook. Without skipping a beat, she told me that I already knew how to cook. I guess she'd been watching me watching her.
I have vivid memories of her telling me that the most important thing I needed to know was how I wanted it to taste. And that's how I cook today.
When September comes, it seems time for fewer salads and more foods that warm and comfort. Since I'm eating little or no red meat these days, I'm experimenting with fish, poultry, rabbit, emu and ostrich.
My latest foray is a chicken stew. I think you could probably use whatever vegetables strike your fancy dependent upon what you prefer. I encourage you to experiment. You'll note that this stew has very little starch. The thickener is OKRA. I just love okra.
Here's what I did. Try it and see if you like it.
How do you want it to taste?
Louise's 2003 Fall Chicken Stew
This stew is fabulous from my point of view. It's like gumbo without the roux. I used: One heavy Iron Frying Pan and One Large Heavy Stew Pot
The ingredients are:
12 Chicken thighs (and you can use your favorite part of the chicken)
The chicken thighs were seasoned with the seasoned salt, dried basil, garlic and lemon pepper
Red and yellow bell peppers
2 large Sweet Onions (as much as you like)
5 Medium Carrots (forget this if you're doing Atkins diet); Substitute celery or zucchini
Fresh Garlic (lots and lots) - You can leave the cloves whole and be overwhelmed by the incredible sweetness of cooked garlic. It's absolutely divine!
Fresh Basil (as much as you like)
2 lbs. Fresh Okra ( I like lots)
If you're unable to find fresh okra, the tinned stuff (you can tell how I feel about it, eh?) will have to do.
All of the fresh vegetables are very coarsely chopped. You always want to recognize them in the bowl. There's almost nothing worse than wondering what you're putting into your mouth.
Ground Habanera Pepper (to taste)
Dried Fijian Peppers
Cinnamon Stick
Seasoned Salt
Lemon Pepper
Dried Basil
Dried Granulated Garlic
French Sea Salt
First: I put Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the iron frying pan and heated the Olive oil until it began to smoke just a bit. I added the dried Fijian peppers and fried them until they gave off some of their heat. Then I turned down the heat under the pan and added the ground Habanera pepper - I added the chicken thighs and browned them in the olive oil. It's important to brown the chicken very well.
I transferred the chicken thighs to a large heavy stew pot that was over a medium low heat
reserving the olive oil in the pan for frying all of the vegetables.
Stew the chicken until it's tender
To get all of the goodness out of the bones, add a tablespoon full of white vinegar. You'll be able to chew the bones. That's something I loved to do when I was a child.
I added about ½ cup of water to the pot with the chicken and the cinnamon stick
I then fried all of the vegetables and put them on top of the chicken disturbing nothing
I stewed this wonderful concoction for about half an hour and then I added a bit of French Sea Salt and mixed everything together. The chicken was nearly falling off the bone by now.
Is your mouth watering yet?
Prepare some Basmati Rice
Chop some wonderful fresh garden tomatoes
Yogurt or sour cream (my preference is sour cream)
To serve - Put rice in a bowl, add chicken stew atop the rice, add tomatoes atop the stew and yogurt or sour cream atop the tomatoes. It's kind of like a vegetable sundae.
Serve with some crusty bread and butter and a nice bottle of your favorite beverage with your favourite person - remembering, of course, that your favourite person could be yourself.
Enjoy!
Note: I purchase my fresh garlic from Linda's Garlic Farm. Phone 250.479.8565 or email czoknek@islandnet.com and be amazed at the beautiful locally (Victoria, BC, that is) grown garlic. |
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