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South Western Stew/Soup

Ingredients

• 1.5lb pork cut into bite sized chunks
• 2lb boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into bite sized chunks
• 1.5 cups diced cubinellie, northern, or banana pepper
• 3 tbs finely chopped serano chilies
• 2 cups diced onion
• 2 cups diced potato
• 1/4 cup ghee (clarified, strained butter)
• 48oz can of chicken broth
• 48oz can beef broth
• 1 can corn kernels
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped fresh curly parsley
• 2 cups red wine
• 5 tbs flour
• 2 tbs ground cumin
• 2 tbs ground ancho chili powder
• 1 tbs ground cayenne pepper powder
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tbs white pepper
• 1 tbs Greek or Mexican oregano
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

In a large fry pan, fry onion, serano chili and cubinellie pepper in 2 tbs ghee. When onions clear add potato and more ghee if necessary. Add some salt and pepper. Fry until potato lightly browned, do not burn. Remove to large pot.

In ziplock add pork, 2 tbs flour, salt and pepper and shake well. Add more ghee to pan and fry pork until lightly browned. Move to large pot. Add more ghee (note reserve at least 3tbs ghee for rue) and fry chicken until lightly browned, add cumin, ancho, cayenne, garlic, oregano and white pepper. Stir well to coat chicken and toast the spices. Note do not overcook chicken or pork, it will cook more later.

Add chicken to pot. Return fry pan to heat and add wine. Deglaze fry pan by scrapping bottom of pan while wine reduces by half. Add to pot. Add broth, parsley, celery, and corn to pot. Bring to simmer, and simmer for an hour.

While the pot is simmering make your rue. In a small fry pan add 3tbs ghee and 3tbs flour. Simmer the mixture on medium heat, stirring regularly. Continue until the rue is a dark chocolate brown, and allow to cool. At the end of the hour add the cool rue and stir well. Simmer and additional 1/2 hour or more.

Other notes:

You can use more meat and potatoes to make it more stew like. Be careful making your rue, you do not want to burn it, and it will take about 45 minutes to make, during which you must stir often. If you want a thicker broth you can use more rue. The secret to rue is that the oil and flour are in equal proportions.

Ghee has a higher smoking point than regular butter. To brown the potatoes and meat, you will need a hot fire under the fry pan, so don't use regular butter, it will burn. Also don't spare the ghee in the browning process, you don't want burning, and the potatoes will need to be well coated to brown.

If you use bell pepper instead of cubanellie use less as it is stronger in taste than the others. You can usually get these long light yellow/green peppers in Giant or Wegmans. They are sometimes called call Italian peppers. Ancho is a mild chili, you could substitute a Hungarian paprika. Seranno is a medium heat small green pepper, you could substitute a smaller amount of jalapeno, but it will not taste the same.

It is important to add salt in the browning process of the potatoes and onions. If you use more meat, you may need to brown meat in two batches, too much meat in a pan will produce liquid and boil instead of browning.

Toasting the spices is an important step to getting the right flavor. Make sure that you add the spices early enough so as not to overcook chicken.

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