a whisk and a spoon

Everyday Dorie: Chicken and Beer Stew

This Chicken and Beer Stew is really supposed to be Beef and Beer Stew, but as I don’t eat read meat, I made some mods so I could try it, too. I actually nominated it for this month, thinking it would be good for St. Paddy’s day, when really it’s based on a Flemish carbonnade. I’m all over the place.

I swapped boneless, skinless chicken thighs, turkey bacon and chicken stock for the other meaty stuff, but followed all the flavorings (spices, mustard, a bit of brown sugar, dark Belgian ale, etc) and flavor-building steps (browning the meat, caramelizing the onions forever, etc) Dorie had listed. I did not, however do the multi-hour oven braise for my dish, because I knew the chicken thighs didn’t need that. I just kept everything on the stove-top for cooking. Following Dorie’s “chockful of vegetables” suggestion, I added in some carrot and baby potato chunks, and let everything low-bubble braise on the stove for 30-45 mins. When the saucy stuff was reduced a bit and everything else was tender and stewed, I called it done. Well, almost. My stew was kind of pale in comparison to the dark color of a beef one. I stirred in a dash of super-dark mushroom soy sauce, my secret ingredient for boosting color and umami when I am doing red to white meat replacements.

The weather is always up and down here in March, but the past several days have been chilly, so it was a nice cozy dinner for last night. I didn’t bother to cook noodles as Dorie suggests, since I had those potatoes in my stew. I like the little bit of sweetness the dish has, but I did save adding the splash of cider vinegar to the pot until after it was off the heat, so it would cut that and brighten the flavors up a bit. I’m looking forward to round two tonight, as stuff like this usually gets better the next day.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.