Here in Portland, the clouds gather and the rain begins to fall, flexing our storm-drains to overflow, 1/8 of an inch at a time. I’m not giving up on summer quite yet, but there is a large contingent of masochistic portlanders who all start to get strangely happy–yes happy–when the grey mornings and damp air return.
Yet the farmers markets are still bursting with summer produce: tomatoes, eggplant, beautiful bountiful greens and all the fruitful trappings of a successful summer growing season. The vibrant, fresh flavors demand simple salads and outdoor bbqs, picnics and ethereal moments of eating melon in the sunshine.
The first snaps of cold and wet, however, beg for stew. Soon, the winter condition: getting out of a warm bed every morning to the sounds of rain drops and pre-dawn light diffused through low clouds, trudging through your day a little too cold, damp and dour to ever have a truly good day, and the late mornings and early dusk all beg for food that warms from the inside out. Last night we marked this seasonal-purgatory: a night for transitional stew.
I started with booty from a farmers market–two meaty, delicious looking tomatoes, a bundle of flat leaf parsley, two beautiful purple onions, two jalapenos (arrg… jah-la-pee-no problems again.) a head of burgandy garlic, and a donated eggplant from Big L.
Winter stews are about standing over the stove, warming your body from the heat and your innards from the inhaled steam, under the guise of keeping a close watch on your dish. It ain’t about the cooking, it’s about the warmth. What could have been a simple stew I deconstructed into core parts, cooking separately and differently and finally mixing to simmer at the last gasp.
here’s how it went:
First, I made stock with the parsley stalks, a few dried chile peppers, black peppercorns and 2 whole star anise. I think I threw in some coriander seeds as well. I had the stock on a roaring boil for a while, with the herbage held under with one of those metal fan strainers (hat tip to Alton brown on that one). I did the choppity chop and roasted off the two onions cut in 1/2″ rounds. I also par-boiled off 1 c. of almonds, skinned them, tossed them in olive oil and added them to the onions about half way through.
The roaring boil now down to a simmer, the green masses strained out, I added a large can of chopped tomatoes. I brought the onions out and let them cool off while I sauteed some slivered onion bits (chopped nubbins from the rounds) 2 jah-la-pee-nos and some crumbled tempeh with a bit of the stock. A little later I added the cold onion/almond mixture and brought the whole thing up to a bare sizzle.
I rolled out the tomatoes (that’s where you cut away the core and juicy bits and end up with the skin/meat of the tomato in a long ‘roll’ of sorts) and sliced them into large chunks–6 per tomato, I’d say. I took the eggplant Big L had sliced and salted the night before and divided the rounds into quarters. I tossed both on the sheet pan and roasted them off for a while. I cored the shrapnel from the tomatoes, cut off the skin and squeezed the buggers into the pot through my fingers.
once the eggplant was roasted off, I added the onion mixture and eggplant to the stock, which was now nicely thickened (from water to, say, cafeteria marinara sauce). I then reduced 1/2c balsamic and 1c granacha ($7 from the co-op) while I made a roux in the pan that previously held the onion mixture (mmm shrapnel and roux). I got the wine/vine down to a syrup and a light brown roux, and in the pot they went.
I killed the heat, gave it 10 minutes and served it with green sneeze (parsley) and Ken’s Artisan Baguette. yummmm…………..