a warm welcome + a stew recipe
last modified 3 months, 1 week ago
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I published my first bear post, but it probably wasn't immediate toasts and welcoming comments - and yet that's what happened!
thank you to everyone who took a peek at this little blog!! and in particular, thank you so much, for signing my guestbook with lovely messages and advice, to t and Xavier!!
I haven't set up an email for contacting yet, but I'll probably do that when I find the time and then I might send off some emails to say hi in private... I think that's nice (I also wanna respond to some blog posts I've seen that I've really liked and strongly agreed with, lol)
I want this post to be a bit more than just thanks though - I wanted to give back a little something - and food's pretty great, so I thought I'd share a recipe - I'm learning how to cook so it's occupying my mind a little bit
this is a Really Simple Stew (ha ha) that's very low maintenance while cooking and only really needs one pot, one cutting board and one big knife (and a vegetable peeler if you can't peel vegetables with a knife)
one of the title ingredients is a pork sausage, but honestly I mostly make it vegan, if nothing else bc I'm lazy and don't wanna go to the butcher's. so I think it's pretty feasible for vegetarians, vegans, and anybody else who doesn't eat pork
it does take about two hours from start to finish for me, but I'm very slow at chopping - half of that cooking time for me is cutting everything up. still, best to go with a generous time estimate right?
& I dunno the full history of the dish or anything but it is traditional to(?)/common in my neck of the woods
anyway, without further ado:
chorizo and lentil stew
feeds 4
I don't know what a calorie macro is but you can probably work it out, I'm like 85% sure this is a reasonably healthy dish though it has a bunch of vegetables
also known as "guiso de lentejas" but that just means lentil stew in spanish
requires knives, water, a cutting board (or two), and a large kitchen pot (a lot of stuff that will reduce is going in it)
ingredients
- 2 medium-small-ish sized carrots or 1 big one
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 medium-sized onion (make it a big-sized if you really like onion)
- 1 medium-big potato
- 1 cup of dry or wet lentils (your choice) (can be just a tetrabrik box of the wet ones lol, those are about a cup)
- chorizo sausage (or to substitute, add more seasoning)
- 1 can or tetrabrik box of tomato purée, or peeled tomatoes in juice, or similar; even store-bought tomato pasta sauce works
- just don't put an entire huge tall jar of sauce mind you - purely off the dome, I think an equal lentil-to-tomato ratio, or somewhat less tomato than lentils, works best
- but also y'know, live your best tomato life
- you can even put whole tomatoes in this, but I'm lazy so I wouldn't be able to tell you how many tomatoes to replicate the effect of purée
- a bouillon cube (you can probably substitute with normal stock). my preferred flavor is chicken, but vegetable bouillon works perfectly fine
- meat (optional, I usually don't worry bc I dislike cooking meat)
- literally any kind of land meat can go in this and taste more or less good, my mom usually does chicken, I think pork would probably taste the best. I wouldn't recommend fish but I've never tried lol
- I also wouldn't recommend leftover meat that's been heavily spiced with something that doesn't go into this dish (like leftover chicken curry for example), or that's been breaded or fried, but otherwise you can totally put already-cooked leftover meat in this
- seasoning:
- salt
- sugar (if your tomatoes are canned or tetrabriked; this counteracts the acidity)
- garlic (a couple crushed cloves or some garlic powder)
- PAPRIKA (vital) (important) (a good healthy strapping couple pinches should be fine, but if there's such a thing as too much paprika I don't know if I've met it)
- basically any other spices you think would be good in this lol
steps
- if your lentils are dry, put them in a bowl with water, and let them soak for as long as you can before cooking (but it has to be at least 30min)
it's fine if you leave them out overnight as long as it's in the fridge or you immediately make stew when you wake up, but really, 30 minutes is enough
you can let them soak while you prepare everything else
- cut everything that's going into the pot into bite-sized pieces
well, not the seasonings or the boullion or the tomato purée but yeah, everything else should be rinsed (if necessary), peeled (if necessary) and cut into bite-sized pieces. the onion should be chopped as finely as you're OK eating cooked onion - depending on mouthfeel preferences this might mean reducing it to atoms, I usually just attempt to dice it.
this also includes meaty stuff - chorizo, chicken, beef, pork, whatever you're adding, it should be cut about now
dump everything in the pot, save the lentils
remove the lentils from their soaking water and add them to the pot
add water until it covers all the ingredients
leave to cook on the stovetop on medium heat, until the water has evaporated. check in every 5-10 minutes to stir the stew and make sure it hasn't stuck to the bottom or burnt
the cooking time should be about an hour, but don't set a timer for an hour, set 5-10 minute timers (looking at any fellow adhd havers here). you can drag a chair to the kitchen and hang out if you want
- once the water's evaporated, it's done! serve, or let cool before freezing
to reheat it once it's been frozen, you can leave it out overnight or just melt it on the stovetop (you might wanna add a little bit of water if you do)
and that's it! very simple, hearthy and delicious. if you make it, well I don't have an email set up yet (I'll edit this post if/when I make one) but once I do you can send me pictures of your results if you want lol
thank you for reading!