January 30, 2011 2:33 PM GMT
Joni's Southwestern Pork and Sweet Potato Stew
This is a hearty main dish that, like most stews and soups, you can easily vary the ingredients to suit your own taste or what you have have on hand. It's a country dish, so precise and exact chopping isn't an issue. It goes well with a green salad on the side along with tortillas (either corn or flour, if you have them around where you live) or hot biscuits or a nice whole grain bread, best of all is nice, hot cornbread. To wash it down a nice hearty beer or ale, or iced tea or lemonade.
NOTE! Like Rachel Ray, I hardly ever do exact measurements (1/8 tsp salt? I mean, c'mon.) except for baked goods where exact amounts or proportions are important. Just use your judgement as to how much you want to make in a batch. This dish also freezes well and like most stews is even better the next day.
UTENSILS:
A large stainless steel or cast iron dutch oven with a lid.
Spoon for stirring.
Chef's knife and cutting board for chopping.
A couple of bowls to hold chopped ingredients that are waiting their turn in the pot.
INGREDIENTS:
1 medium sized pork shoulder roast, either boneless or bone in, cut into approx 1" chunks with excess fat trimmed off.
4-5 good sized sweet potatos or yams, personally I prefer yams (yes, I know what the name of the recipe is) but use whatever you have, it won't matter.
2 medium sized yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 medium size bag of frozen peas
1 medium size bag of frozen corn
1 medium size bag of frozen chopped okra (you can leave it out if you don't like it)
1 medium size bag of fresh or frozen sliced carrots
***Of course you can always use fresh veggies if you have them and they're in season.***
1 box (32 oz) of chicken broth, you can also use vegetable broth or plain water
2 bottles of chili sauce. ***NOTE! VERY IMPORTANT! This is NOT 2 bottles of hot sauce. This stuff is made by Heinz and looks ketchupy and is only very mildly spicy. DO NOT use two bottles of hot sauce or you will be sorry. Don't say I didn't warn you. You can also use tomato sauce if you can't find the chili sauce stuff.
ANOTHER NOTE! There is some confusion between the word chile and chili. Chiles (with an "e" at the end, ie, "chile", properly prounounced "chee-leh) is the fruit of various plants in the capsicum family and range in heat from rather mild to "OH MY GOD HELP ME! HELP ME!". Chili (with an "i" at the end) is the concoction of meat and beans and spices that comes in cans but is also made at home and gets served over burgers, hotdogs and so on or in big bowls with crackers. It also comes in various degrees of mouth heat
.
Dried red pepper flakes to taste. Go easy, you can always add more if you like, but it's hard to make a dish milder once too much is added.
Fresh, finely chopped jalapeno or serrano chiles if you can get them. Once again go easy, don't just drop great handsful in the pot. Removing the seeds and white ribs inside the chile will reduce some of the heat. Oh, and wash your hands when you're done prepping them.
Salt and pepper to taste.
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
Cooking oil for sauteeing
INSTRUCTIONS:
Do all the prep work first, chop the meat, the onions, mince the garlic, etc. Fry the chopped pork in a small amount of oil in the dutch oven, until browned. Fry the meat up in small batches, if you add it all at once it will just steam rather than get nicely browned. As the batches brown transfer them to a bowl. Add oil as needed during the browning process. Once all the meat is nicely browned add a little oil to the dutch oven and toss in the onions and garlic and carefully sautee them until just turning brown. Be careful, burned garlic tastes nasty. Once done, add the meat back to the pot and pour in a small amount of the broth or water to deglaze the pot and get all the nice browned yummy bits off the bottom of the pot. Add the yams or sweet potatos and enough broth to cover the ingredients as well as the salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and the chopped chiles. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. If foam forms on top you can skim it off if you want but I usually don't, it will cook down. Once the yams or sweet potatos are just barely fork tender, add the rest of the veggies, saving the peas for last, personally I think peas taste best if only heated through. Taste the broth and adjust seasonings. It's ready to serve when all the vegetables are tender and heated through but not falling apart.
Serve with salad and the accompaniments mentioned above. You can also serve bottled or homemade salsa as well as bottled hot sauce. Enjoy!
Final note, ice cold milk is good if you find a dish is too spicy. It's why Indian cooks serve yogurt alongside curries. I hope you girls and guys like this, if you have any questions, please let me know, especially if something seems unclear or confusing.
Hugs...Joni Mari
February 2, 2011 2:49 AM GMT
Hi Melody-
Yep, I agree as far as the so called chili sauce, honestly, I have no idea why the call it that. Oh well. And girl, the way you do your burgers is a recipe. Would you mind kind of putting it in a regular recipe format and we will includ it in the recipes we already have. You know, rough amounts of ingredient and order of preparation and like that. I would so appreciate it and I know everyone else would to.
Hugs...Joni Mari
February 6, 2011 9:27 PM GMT
Okay, I'm a pretty bad chef and the depth of my cooking knowledge amounts to a few cajun recipes. So, I ask you...can I use potatoes instead of sweet potatoes? Or would that ruin it?
Z