Sweet and Sour Stewy Something Or Other

I was so looking forward to making Sweet and Sour Stew on page 97 of The Stocked Kitchen. In print it reminded me of this Sweet and Sour Turkey recipe my mom has been making since the 70s, and that I still love today. I was hungry, and I wanted something satisfying.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, as are all of the recipes from The Stocked Kitchen. But for someone who's worked all day, and has only a few brain cells left, I had a lot of questions:

• What temperature should you saute the meat at?
• Should the pot I'm cooking in be covered?
• In step four, what "flour mixture" are they talking about?
• How do you chop the potatoes? In a 1" dice? Roughly chop them? 
• Same question for the carrots? Should it be a dice? Half moons? Just wing it?

 I winged it, grabbed one questionable carrot from the bottom bin of the crowded fridge and chopped away. Chopped those taters up, too.

Questionable Carrot

I also subbstituted chicken for flank steak. As a rule, I don't prepare beef in the house. I was a vegetarian for some years, and just got out of the habit. I will cook chicken, fish, pork, but no beef. Now it's only weird to other people, not me. I figured the substitution wouldn't make any difference at all. It didn't, well, not right away. 

Here's the chicken covered with flour, just waiting to hit the heat.

I sauteed the chicken. The recipe calls for sauteing meat in one pan and cooking the stew in the other. I didn't want to mess up another pan, so didn't bother. Probably should have followed the directions as the sauce thickened very fast. Too fast. By the time I figured this out, though, it was too late to turn back.

Stew looks tasty!

In the picture above, the stew looks tasty, and it smelled mighty tasty too. I was having flashbacks to the 70s and mom's Sweet and Sour - all from some water, brown sugar, vinegar, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce. I was ready to just pour this over rice and dig in, but had to wait for a 45 minute simmer.

The recipe, however, called for a cup of carrots, two cups potatoes, and two cans of mushrooms. I dutifully added them in and read the directions. That's when I realized I had another 45 minutes to wait. On a Monday night after a long day of work and little lunch. And to top it off, there wasn't enough liquid to cover the vegetables, so I added more. It looked OK to me:

Carrots, potatoes, mushrooms and extra water added.

I covered the stew and listened to my tummy rumble for about a half hour. I ate the last of the dark chocolate covered almonds.  I read the mail. I Googled stuff to kill time. I came back to the stove and added even more water, for a total of two cups more than the recipe actually called for. I knew I was on dangerous, watered-down taste territory. I gave it ten minutes more and gave up.

Sweet and Sour Stew

I spooned out a steaming hot serving into my new yellow Fiestaware individual casserole serving bowl/dish thingie (a Christmas gift) and scooped up a spoonful.

It was way to hot for me. As in almost burned my mouth too hot. I waited a little bit longer to the sounds of my tummy organizing a group of protest marchers. I tried again. The chicken was tasty, moist. The broth was tasty, but really watered down; I wish I had not used the same pan to cook the meat and stew in. I also did not like the canned mushrooms, and I'm sure fresh button mushrooms would be a good substitute. But at least I don't have those darn cans of mushrooms staring at me anymore.

Was it sexy? Nah. Not for me. I'd rather be seduced with mom's Sweet and Sour which that fills me up and makes me happy (there are plenty of innuendos to be made with that statement; go for it.) Regardless, I'm not going to give up on The Stocked Kitchen. The authors are Michigan gals. I like to support local endeavors, and genuinely like the concept of the book -- one grocery list, endless recipes. Friends recommend the book so there has to be a recipe in here that can seduce me. But which one will it be? We'll see.