Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

Well, I guess it is still winter, so let's make slow cooker chicken stew.

What I love about the slow cooker (a statement I never thought I'd make) is that you can really throw any combination of meat, broth and veggies in it and end up with a lovely satisfying meal with little to no effort. At the end of the day (literally) you can serve up a wonderful meal that satisfies both young and old alike.

I've added a ton of root veggies, some porcini mushroom stock, and lots of garlic for a very tasty and hearty stew. The veggies and mushroom stock add an earthy sweetness to the final product.

My neighbors have a ten month old baby. I offered some of this stew to him and he went crazy. He was eating with two hands, the meat, the stewed fennel and the carrots. He made all sorts of appreciative noises, too, and kept reaching for more. I couldn't ask for a better endorsement of the tastiness of this stew.

Well, I got one. My 14 year old daughter was skeptical at first, based on the not-so-pretty-ness of the chicken itself. Once I shredded it up and convinced her to give it a try, she was hooked. The meat was juicy and sweet and tasted of all the great veggies that surrounded it while it cooked.

If this slow cooker chicken stew can please kids aged ten months to 14 years old, then I think it's well worth making. Oh, and of course, the adults loved it, too.

Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

serves 8

Ingredients

• 6 strips bacon, cut up into small pieces
• 3 onions, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into thick rings
• 1 bulb fennel, fronds and hard ends removed, cut into chunks
• 1 bulb garlic, skin removed, cloves crushed
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 2 sprigs fresh sage
• 2 sprigs fresh oregano
• 20 oil cured olives, pits removed
• 6 chicken thighs
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (or bacon grease, if you have it)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 1 to 2 porcini mushroom boullion cubes (or you can replace the 1 cup of water with wild mushroom broth)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Method:

1. Dry the chicken thighs and coat each piece thoroughly in the rice flour.
2. Put the diced bacon in a small saucepan and over with water.
3. Boil the bacon in the water for ten minutes, drain, dry and set aside.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium to high heat.
5. Add the bacon fat (or olive oil).
6. Place each chicken thigh in the hot pan, skin side down. Do not crowd the thighs, you may need to cook them in batches, to make sure there is enough space in the pan.
7. Cook on the first side for 5 minutes, then flip the thighs over and cook for an additional five minutes. Remove to crock pot and set aside.
8. Once all of the chicken has been browned and removed, add the root vegetables and the boiled bacon to the hot pan. Brown on all sides, making sure to scrape up all the flour onto the veggies.
9. Add the vegetables and bacon to the slow cooker, arranging the chicken to rest slightly on top of the veggies.
10. Add the chicken stock and the porcini boullion cube to the hot pan, cooking long enough to dissolve the boullion.
11. Pour the stock over the chicken and vegetables in the slow cooker. Add water to cover, if you haven't got enough liquid to get to the minimum fill line.
12. Turn the slow cooker on to low and cook for 6 hours.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts and Potato Salad

A version of this recipe is featured on The Fruit Guys website.

Please meet my new favorite way to prepare Brussels sprouts: shredded. What a delightfully easy way to make a very healthy salad, using something other than your standard issue salad greens.

I first came across this method in the Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food cookbook. Their version (which I made and wrote about here) includes bacon. Which, in so many ways, makes me so happy. But, I've found that I need to cut back on the pork products (oh wait, I have a rack of pork ribs in the oven right now....). Therefore, I've created a new recipe using the shredded Brussels sprouts in not only a vegetarian recipe, but also a vegan one. A girl's got to keep her sleek physique and all of the lovely recipes I've been writing have begun to add up on the I-think-my-pants-shrunk-in-the-dryer meter.

The potatoes are the only cooked item in the whole shebang. You can either roast them, dice them or fry them, just do whatever you prefer. And, I didn't include how many this recipe feeds. Seems that the shredded sprouts really go on for days. I've taken to shredding a while bunch of them and storing them in a zipper bag in the fridge. That way I can make any kind of salad I want whenever I want to.

Please do make this or the other recipe referenced above. It really tastes great and is a nice change in your salad repertoire.

Brussels Sprouts and Potato Salad

INGREDIENTS

• 1 to 2 cups shredded Brussels sprouts
• 2 cups potatoes in 3/4 inch dice, steamed, roasted, sautéed, or boiled until tender but not mushy
• 1 /2 cup fresh chopped carrots
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine or sherry vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, minced finely
• ½ teaspoon minced tarragon
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

• Shred the Brussels sprouts.  You can use either a mandolin slicer or the slicer blade on your food processor. And, cutting them by hand is perfectly fine, just make them as thin as possible.
• Place the shredded Brussels sprouts, diced and cooked potatoes and carrots in a large bowl.
• Mix together the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, sage, red pepper flakes and salt and pepper.
• Add the dressing to the vegetables and mix well.

Vegetables

vegetables from the ferry building

Julia, Gran Fran and Me

This is a re-post of a piece I wrote two years ago, almost exactly. Apparently, as soon as it gets cool here in SF, I need to make Beef Bourguignon. Enjoy!

As you have probably already surmised, if you’ve read several of these posts, Gran Fran is an awesome cook who uses mostly intuition, learned over decades of cooking, alongside her unquenchable thirst for cookbooks.

 One of my earliest mother-daughter memories is of a fundraiser that we did when I was about 5 years old. Gran Fran volunteered for a membership drive for our local PBS television station. We were stationed in a small fold up booth in front of the Bloomingdale’s in Fresh Meadows, Queens (which I believe is now a K-Mart).

In exchange for membership, new members would get a cookbook. Not just any cookbook, but THE cookbook. Which one, you may ask? It’s the Julia Child tome of greatness, 

Mastering The Art of French Cooking

.

I recall Gran Fran waxing poetic about the recipes and the program. Remember, this was 1975, or so (oops, there it is again, a veiled reference to my actual age), not a time when a lot of people were spending hours make Bernaise sauce at home, but it was beginning to happen. Gran Fran sold some memberships that day, but mostly, she got to represent one of her culinary heroes to the public.

Recently, I asked her which of Julia’s recipes was her favorite. She said “Well, of course it’s Beef Bourguignon.” I know, it’s a typical recipe to choose, but it is one of the best, and we grew up eating it a lot. Gran Fran made it and the house smelled like a French bistro. The warmth of the kitchen, the smells of the red wine mingling with the bacon, thyme and onions is an unmatchable sensory memory for me.

Beef Bourguinon ala Gran Fran with a nod to Julia Child serves 8

One gigantic non-reactive pot is needed!!

Ingredients:

• 3 to 3.5 Lbs Bottom Round, cubed (any good beef stewing meat works here)
•  1/4 Lb Double Smoked Bacon
• 2 Tbsps Olive Oil
• 2 Carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 Onion; diced
• 2 Cloves Garlic, peeled and diced
• 2 Tsps Flour
• 3 Cups Dry Red Wine
• 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
• Salt
• Pepper
• Thyme
• Bay Leaf

Method:

• Preheat oven to 325°.
• Boil diced bacon in 3 cups water for 10 minutes. Refresh bacon under cold water. Dry well.
• Heat oil in a large skillet. Add bqcon. When bacon browns, remove from pan and set aside.
• Dry beef well, then add it to the hot skillet.
• Brown well on all sides.
• In a heavy, nonreactive stew pan, add some oil from the skillet.
• Saute onions and carrots in stew pan until golden brown. Then, sprinkle the veggies with the flour (which ultimqtely helps thicken the stew).
• Brown until golden over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add browned meat to veggies.
• Add red wine to the skillet you used to cook the meat. Stir up all browned particles and bring to a boil. Add this to meat in stew pot.
• If needed, add water to stew pot so all so meat is covered.
• In a small non-reactive sauce pan, place tomato paste, salt, pepper, garlic and thyme, with a little bit of olive oil. Stir over medium heat until paste has thinned a bit and all herbs/spices have been incorporated. Add to stew pot.
• Bring the stew to a boil on top of the stove.
• COver closely (another gran franism) and plce on lower rack in the 325° oven.
• Leave undisturbed for 1.5 hours.
• Then, stir,put cover back on and simmer another 1.5 hours.

This stew tastes even better when reheated, so make a day or two in advance