Chicken Stew

[nonnihil]

The January Cook's Illustrated had a page on stew theory. The things it had to say -- mostly about the order in which stew components should be added -- was something of a revelation to me. I'm an avid stewer, so it gets harder and harder to learn anything new even as I still suffer the alarmingly regular failures of any regular amateur stewer.

Comments

[ukelele]

nonnihil doesn't get across how really excellent this was -- a bit more of a thick soup than a stew, with delicate and sophisticated flavors -- comfort food gone wildly upscale. And then the baguette. Mmmm.

[dolohov]

left it to sit (argh!)

Why the "argh!"? Seems natural to me to let it sit and steep a bit. (I mean, if you can always take them out if they were left whole) Actually, I tend to do both, adding some herbs at the beginning and some at the end. Basil, for example, has pretty different (somewhat magnified) flavor after being left to cook for a while -- it tends to complement itself.

[nonnihil]

Argh mostly in that I had timed it perfectly to when I _thought_ the stew would be ready, and then it wasn't. Argh in a purely defied-expectations sense, not in a culinary sense.

[nakor]

You do a lot of taking out liquids and adding them back later.

[tiurin]

The pot that I made stew in and left at your place after babysitting was labeled as a Dutch oven by the retailer- whether or not it actually is seems open to debate.

[ukelele]

And we should totally get that back to you!