Sunday, November 16, 2008

In the Kitchen

There was grass-fed beef, pastured chicken, pasture-raised pork and free-ranging goat from Deck Family Farm at the Hollywood Farmer's Market on Saturday. I went for the goat. Never had goat. When I got home I put the frozen package in the fridge. Today I made stew.


I started by cooking a whole mess of garlic in some olive oil.


Took the garlic out and browned up the meat, which I'd tossed around in some flour mixed with salt, pepper, cumin and crushed coriander.



Took the meat out, then put the heat to some chopped onion, followed by chopped carrot and parsnip. Oh, and a little grated fresh ginger, too.

From there, it was just a matter of throwing the meat and garlic back in the pot, adding some white wine, water and the small amount of vegetable broth that was nearing its end date in the fridge. I slipped the pot into a 250-degree over while I skittered off for a long, vitamin D-producing walk around town. Upon my return two hours later, I tossed in some Kalamata olives and a can of garbanzos. Let that cook for another hour.

Served over brown rice. Wow, the meat was great, falling-apart (but-still-together) tender and with a deep, meaty flavor. Yeah, kind of like lamb, I guess. And I liked the general stew flavor, with the big sweet roasted garlic and the salty olives playing off that. Only thing missing was a little heat. Maybe some red chilies of some sort...

4 comments:

Dan Brekke said...

Beautiful, Pete. I make stews, they always stay on top of the stove. I'm going to try that oven thing, though.

Pete said...

You need a very heavy Le Creuset-style pot, but I like the idea (who knows what the reality is) of more even heat distribution. It works especially well for braising meat, I think. And in truth, my goat stew was more braised goat than it was goat stew. Although the meat pieces were stew-sized, the cooking liquid never completely covered the meat.

Crackhead said...

I enjoyed your food porn, especially the garlic!

Pete said...

EUFC, I am consuming ungodly amounts of garlic these days. I'll slowly sizzle like 10 sliced-in-half cloves into a mess of olive oil until they're golden and soft, then crank up the heat and throw in a bag of Trader Joe's organic spinach, saute it around until the spinach is nicely wilted, squeeze a bit of lemon juice on it, then finish with fresh cracked pepper. It's tasty and when I eat I can practically hear my body saying, "Thank you, Pete, for being so fucking good to me."