Top Secret Beer Broth
The Ingredients
-1 chicken carcass from a roast chicken.
-1 large onion.
-Garlic powder.
-4 carrots, chopped.
-Cellery.
-Peppercorns.
-A depressingly large quantity of beer. Have at least a 12 pack ready.
The Process
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| What? Are we making a salad? |
Add the carcass and all your assorted veggies into your stew pot. I'd go light on the peppercorns, the little buggers can be really annoying if you use too many. Once everything's tossed in we get to the mildly soul crushing part. Start pouring bottles of precious beer into the pot until it covers everything. I used Newcastle Brown Ale, but you're welcome to try it with whatever you feel like. Just remember one tiny commandment: never, ever cook with something that you wouldn't gladly drink. I used somewhere between six and nine 12 oz bottles. Basically all I had in my fridge.
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| A moment of silence for the valiant beer which sacrificed itself for science. SCIENCE! |
Bring this bad boy to a boil and keep it there for between an ninety minutes and two hours. Once it's done, separate the liquid beer stock from the meat and veggies and pack it away for another day. Trust me, you don't have enough time to proceed with the rest of this project in the same day. At this point you can let the meat and veggies cool and then attempt to pick the bones out, but it's not a requirement.
Chicken Stew
Okay, this part isn't really anything special. Just my usual 'what ever's in the kitchen' stew. The real noteworthy bit is my use of the new broth.
The Ingredients
-Top Secret Beer Broth.
-'Brothed' chicken and veggies.
-1 can red beans.
-1 can black beans.
-2 cans stewed tomatoes.
The Process
First off, if you froze the broth like I did, you need to thaw it out. . . this might take awhile.
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| Rejected Slushie flavor: chicken. |
Once the broth is mostly liquid, add in the canned beans and tomatoes. You shouldn't need to add any additional liquid. Bring it to a boil and let it stew for an hour, stirring occasionally. If you're like me and didn't do bone removal before hand, keep a close eye on the surface. Bones will float up as the meat boils off. At this point we move on to the next item in this project. . .
Andouille-Stuffed Potato Dumplings
This part of the project was completely whim. I was originally just going to add potatoes and some red bell peppers to the stew as is usual for me. In the frenzy of the moment I decided to make dumplings instead, so I consulted the internets and adapted a recipe I found there to my own style and available ingredients.
The Ingredients
-2 to 3 potatoes.
-1 cup all purpose flour.
-1/4 teaspoon baking powder.
-1 egg.
-1 link of andouille sausage.
The Process
Peel and chop your potatoes while you bring a large pot of salted water to boil. You want to use two large potatoes or three medium-ish potatoes. The important part is that you wind up with two cups of mashed potatoes. Boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes, drain the pot, and mash them up. Then add the flour, baking powder, and egg and mix it up until you have your dough. The original recipe called for self-rising flour. Since that's not something I have in my kitchen, I just added a dash of baking powder to compensate. No idea if it makes a difference.
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| What time is it kids? Improvisational baking time! |
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| Doughn't this look good? Okay, bad joke. . . |
The original recipe instructs me to plant a crouton in the middle of each dumpling. Not having any croutons handy, I decided to one up the recipe's author. Namely, by using MEAT. I cut up a link of andouille sausage and put one piece in each dumpling.
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| Making dumplings safe for America. . . |
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| I'm sure there some sophomoric joke I could make here. . . |
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| GENTLEMEN! DUMPLINGS! |
The recipe yielded about 9 1/2 dumplings for me. The estimate was eight.
The next step is to add your delicious sausage-injected dumplings to the boiling hot stew. Once the stew has sizzled for an hour-ish, drop in your dumplings, cover the stew, and let it cook for another 20 to 30 minutes.
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| Stand back, or I drop the dumpling! |
The Results
Notice anything? Something missing? What!? He didn't use any creole seasoning! The cad!
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| Psh. It's probably mild as milk. |
This recipe makes a lot of food, folks. With cold season on its way in, I figured I might not be the only person eating this delicious chicken concotion, so I thought it best to leave the spicy stuff out, considering that I might wind up sharing with someone of a more delicate culinary persuasion. I still sprinkled each bowl with a bit of spice though. It goes especially well with the dumplings.
The stew is still quite good without the spice. The use of beer instead of water for making the stock does about what I expected it to do: make the whole equation a little richer. And sweeter. I might err on the side of not including the beans and tomatoes next time (essentially skipping the middle step). I'm not convinced they add much to the whole experience. In a thicker stew they'd come out more, but it just didn't end up that way.
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| Classy lunch is classy. |
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| I know, that's the wrong glass for that beer. I need to pick up some Leffe goblets. . . |
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| The sausage embedded in the dumplings make for a nice little surprise. |
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| Bowl two. I'm not sure what to do about the chicken getting so stringy. |
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| I've yet to master the art of bone removal. |
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