Brunswick Stew

I have always been a bit fan of any sort of thick and chunky soup or stew so when I saw this was our challenge I was very excited to make a version I had never tried.

There were two recipes that we could choose from but I liked things about both of them so I decided to do a bit of a combination.    The recipes called for rabbit and since I have no idea where I would even get rabbit I decided to substitute with something I knew I could get my hands on, beef.  One of the recipes called for making your own stock and since I made stock for a previous challenge I didn’t really want to try and make stock again so I went with store bought stock.

Speaking of the stock, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to changing the protein in a dish but forgetting to change the stock to go along with it.  So since the recipe called for chicken stock it wasn’t until I put it in that I realized I was cooking with beef and therefore I should have used beef stock.  Thankfully all of the spices masked the chicken taste and it turned out pretty good.

Overall I can’t say it was one of my favourite stews and that could be in part to the whole stock issue, but it was still good.  I think if I was to do it again I would try adding some new and exciting vegetables instead of the traditional ones found in a stew such as carrots, potatoes, onions, celery.

Brunswick Stew

1/4 lb bacon, rough diced
2 Serrano stems trimmed, sliced, seeded, flattened
1 lb stew meat
1 Tablespoon sea salt for seasoning, plus extra to taste
4 cups Beef Broth
2 Bay leaves
2 large celery stalks
1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes peeled, rough diced
3/4 cups carrots chopped
1 1/2 cups onion chopped
1 cup frozen corn
1 14 ounce can mixed beans
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
Juice of 1 lemons
Tabasco sauce to taste

Fry bacon until crispy.  Add all other ingredients and  cook until vegetables are tender.