Brunswick Stew

Coming in today with a very timely post. Timely meaning we made this over the weekend! We are usually sharing drafted posts that are scheduled a few days or weeks out but things are a little light for January and I thought it would be fun to get this soup post up the week after we made it.

Much like fellow East Coast folks we were snowed in this past weekend. On Friday morning we awoke to a blanket of snow and a beautiful winter wonderland. Fortunately we never lost power so we were able to enjoy the comforts of our home (cooking and heat, primarily) throughout the weekend. Patrick and I kept ourselves well entertained during the icy storm and remnants. On Friday I ventured outside to deliver goodie bags to all the neighbors (post on that next week) and enjoyed saying hello to everyone. Then on Saturday we invited neighbors over for lunch and an afternoon game. Finally on Sunday we forged on in our journey called "paint the house" and painted a bunch of upstairs doors.

One thing Patrick and I were pleasantly surprised when we moved into our house last year was that several other houses were occupied by young folks! Woo millennials! We put in an effort to get to know said young folks over the past year and have enjoyed building these neighborly relationships. With everyone cooped in houses and impassable roads on Saturday we invited the neighbors over for lunch and games. I had things on hand for Brunswick Stew and passed along the message that if folks wanted to bring something to share that'd be welcome. In addition to the stew we had homemade rosemary bread and angel food cake. The majority of our young folk neighbors are not from the South and only one had heard of Brunswick Stew so it was fun to share one of my favorite soups with them.

Before setting out to make this Southern soup I called my grandmother and asked to "walk me through" making it. My grandfather answered the phone and after telling him what I wanted he said, "good luck, she does it differently every time." After telling me the basics of making the soup she asked me when I was making it and when I responded with "it's for lunch" she quickly responded "well you better hurry up and start." So I hung up and here's how I winged it:


Brunswick Stew
   Serves 8
Ingredients
2 tbsp butter divided
2 onions, diced and divided
2 qts water
2 large chicken breasts
2 cups butter beans (frozen)
1 pint corn (frozen)
3 Yukon potatoes, 1/2" dice
1 bell pepper, small dice
2-3 carrots, small dice
1-2 celery stalks, small dice
3 cups stewed tomatoes

Directions
   In a large soup pot melt 1 tbsp butter and saute onion. Add salt. Once translucent add water and chicken. Bring to a boil and simmer until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken and set aside. Once chicken has cooled, shred and reserve.
   To the broth add butter beans, pint corn, and potatoes. Continue to simmer. In a separate pan melt remaining butter and add saute diced bell pepper, onion, carrot, and celery. Once sauteed veggies are soft and translucent add to the broth mixture along with shredded chicken and tomatoes. Season accordingly and keep on a low simmer for about an hour.

Mine didn't turn out quite as good as Granny's so I'm looking forward to refining my Brunswick Stew technique. She highly recommended started the soup base with pork (either a ham bone or bacon) but I didn't have either one of those at my disposal.

It's Always Caturday
Nacho analyzing the white stuff

Did you make snowed in soup this weekend??

1 comment:

  1. Your stew looks just like Granny's. I did not make soup. Can't remember what my menus were.

    ReplyDelete