This dish is an excellent gateway meal to soup and stew season and I got lucky - it is unseasonably chilly tonight and this hearty stew with porky broth was perfect after a late afternoon walk, coming home with cold ears. This is delicious and my advice would be to forgo perfectly diced vegetables and go for larger, roughly cut pieces (as illustrated above) for this rustic dish. The rich and flavorful broth will make your house smell wonderful while the Garbure cooks. Please keep in mind that the vinegar you drizzle in at the end should add a bit of a tang to the stew rather than pack an assertive punch - a bit like the signature tang in a good loaf of sourdough.
I also like this dish because it is made with dried beans, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, turnips, and smoked pork shanks (or ham hocks) - all very budget friendly ingredients. I tend to use it to clean out my hydrator as well so I sneak a few more vegetables in than are usually on the traditional ingredient list. Today that meant kohlrabi and wasabi greens. The collagen in the meat bones adds a great mouthfeel to the whole dish and you can add as little (or as much) of one ingredient as you want; it is a very adaptable and forgiving stew. Use the recipe below as a base guideline and make it your own!
Will make about 5 quarts - plenty for both dinner and for the freezer.
1 lb dried Great Northern beans
1 Tbsp duck fat or olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
8 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
2 smoked pork shanks or cross-cut smoked ham hocks
1 bay leaf
6 small potatoes, cubed
1 bunch baby turnips, cubed
3 carrots, cubed
3 kohlrabi, cubed
1/2 head of Savoy cabbage, thinly chopped
1 cup chopped greens - spinach, kale, carrot greens or (as I did) wasabi greens, which I had recently brought home from the Farmers' market with which to make a salad for my lunch, and haden't)
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2-3 Tbsps red wine vinegar
Salt to taste
Cover your dried beans with boiling water. Set aside while you chop all of your vegetables.
Heat the oil or duck fat in a large stockpot. Add the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat until the garlic is fragrant and the onion is starting to turn translucent, a couple of minutes.
Lower the heat and add the meat, the bay leaf and the stock to the pan. Cover and let cook or 1 hour, until a porky broth is starting to form.
Add the beans (water and all) and cook for an addition half hour. By this time your house should be smelling wonderful.
At this point, remove the meat from the broth, set aside to cool.
Add the potatoes, the kohlrabi and a generous dose of salt to the broth. Cook for 5 minutes before adding the carrots and turnips. Cook for an additional 5 minutes before adding the cabbage and cooking a further 5.
After adding the cabbage, the meat should be cool enough to pick through and remove all viable meat. Though amazing flavor boosters, neither pork shanks nor ham hocks have a lot of meat with which to work. Chop whatever you find and set aside.
Check a potato and carrot piece for doneness, before stirring in the chopped parsley.
Taste the broth and see if it needs further salt. Add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar to the broth, stir to combine. Taste and add the remaining tablespoon to the mix if needed.
Serve piping hot, making sure that each bowl has a generous sampling of each vegetable available. Top with a tiny bit of the reserved meat.
Freeze the rest once cool for warming winter weekend lunches or dinner when you need a little boost after coming in from the cold.
Inspiration recipe, here.
Commentaires