Stewsday (repeat)
Hello,
Miserable month, January. It’s been going fairly well, by pub standards in the bleakest weeks but even so, there’s no pretending it’s not dark and cold and everyone’s poor.
Today’s been particularly melodramatic weather, with a huge flash of lightning followed about 10 seconds later (so miles and miles away) by the biggest clap of thunder I’ve ever heard in my life and then 45 seconds of intense, sideways hail. Stay indoors, preferably in a pub.
I’ve been making stews and keeping them in a slow cooker on the bar, so people can buy them all day. For £4.50 it’s a bowl of something nutritious and cooked from scratch, with some bread to mop it up.
I started doing it because of a really fond memory from donkey’s years ago when I worked at the Henley Standard. We’d all nip to the pub for lunch some days, especially if we’d just sent the copy to print for the week. Sometimes the editor came, more likely than not to sink a bottle of red wine but quite often it was just the reporters - me and four young lads.
On the bar, in one of them cauldron things that get used for mulled wine, the pub landlord kept a pot of ever-topped-up stew. It was beef and ale and he’d just throw more beef and more ale and some other ingredients in every day and keep it going. I can’t remember exactly how much it cost for a bowl with a hunk of bread but it was the sort of thing people on junior journalist salaries didn’t blink twice about and I’m pretty sure cheaper than a pint, which stuck in my head as a price point.
A pint of Fosters or Carling in my pub is £4.70 outside happy hour, so I figured £4.50 was about right. It works really well; just need to keep a supply of bowls and bread and occasionally experiment with things other than bread as the carb. I’ve done herby couscous for a vegetable tagine because it takes as long as boiling the kettle and can be made on demand, in the stew bowl and then tonight I’ve done (forgive me, the nation of Thailand) a sort of Thai-style chicken curry that I’ll pour over rice vermicelli to instantly soak the noodles.
It’s fucking killing me. Making a stew every single day is absolute madness. Just the washing up is breaking me but on the other hand, it’s also really selling. I’ve emptied the pot the last two nights and the pub wasn’t even busy. Got a load of shit off the regulars on Friday night because what with one thing and another I hadn’t managed to make one and they had to go to the kebab shop for tea instead.
It’s not like stews are hard. And I try not to over-salt them or anything, something genuinely nutritious - especially for the older fellas, who often aren’t eating anything home cooked if the missus is gone. They pour their own salt on it from the shaker but at least my conscience is clear.
S’quite nice, as something I’m slagging my arse off to do, chopping up a load of stuff about 11am (or, inevitably, later 90% of the time) and then letting it stew away all day. Makes the pub smell good. Feels like something positive to do, seems to make people happy and yes it’s probably pretty much the cheapest pub meal you can get in what’s technically just about London but it’s not rubbish, everything bought as ethically and locally as I can. Even if it makes me weep a bit to have to not make it too spicy. (Not holding back on the paprika for the gulacz tomorrow though, got to have some principles)
Here’s some of my most successful ones.
Something I called Italian Beef stew even though it’s not
Sorry, the nation of Italy. I have been doing crimes.
Ingredients:
Load of stewing beef - prob a handful per person is roughly what makes sense, I use a bit less because there’s plenty of veg
Couple of diced carrots
Two big cloves garlic, chopped
One diced white onion
Half a jar of white beans
Tin of chopped tomatoes
One fist-sized potatoe, peeled and chopped
Two courgettes, diced
Fresh thyme and sage, chopped
Dried oregano and basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Pint of stock, from a cube or proper, whichever you’ve got
The recipe for nearly all of these is: throw a bit of oil in a pan, fry down the bits that need a bit of browning (onion, garlic, courgette, beef) then deglaze with the stock, throw the rest in and let it crack on for a bit. This is probably one of the nicest ones I’ve made, for stuff I was completely making up off the top of my head.
Something I could probably pass off as Chanakhi if I was a less honest person
Ingredients
Diced lamb, on the bone if possible even if that does make it a bit more ~challenging
Two big aubergines
Two red onions
Pomegranate molasses
Fenugreek (blue if you can get it)
Turmeric
Basil (purple if you can get it - the shop next to my pub is the only place I ever seen it in the UK though)
Three big cloves of garlic, chopped
Thumb joint sized chunk of fresh ginger, grated or diced
Listen I’d bang a load of chilli in this if it was just for me but I settled for a bit of paprika in the name of peace
Tablespoon of pomegranate molasses
Chicken or vegetable stock, about a pint
Salt and pepper to taste
Right, the most important bit here is: you must roast the aubergines first. Slice ‘em up into centimetre thick discs, rub them in a bit of oil and salt and pepper and pop them in the oven for however long it takes for them to crisp up a bit. My oven’s shit so that’s fucking ages but if you’ve got a decent one or an air fryer or whatever the kids are using to make TikTok recipes these days it’s probably not long at all.
Once they’re roasted, chop them up into rough cubes. You can do this while the rest is bubbling away.
Then you just follow the same principles as the above; fry the bits that need frying and then chuck the rest in, let it go hard on the stove for a bit then into the slow cooker. Serve with chopped coriander and pomegranate seeds if you’re feeling like a gourmet motherfucker.
Not actually cassoulet
There’s been a lot of this going on, I’m afraid.
A bunch of sausages, need to be decently meaty ones but you don’t have to get the finest ones, it is just a stew - chop ‘em up into bite size chunks so it’s spoonable
Couple of slices of bacon
Two glasses of pinot grigio you’ve abandoned on the lounge table in the past week and put in a jar for exactly this purpose. Actually one might have been sauvignon blanc, whatever, the varietal’s hardly important.
One chopped white onion
Two big cloves garlic, chopped
Tin of green lentils
Tin of white beans
Tin of chopped tomatoes
The most salvageable bits of a dead pot of thyme
Pinch of ground aniseed
Dried oregano (prob about three teaspoons)
Salt and pepper to taste
Enough water to make it stew-y
Right, so, usual drill with the sausages and onions and garlic but fry the bacon separately, so it gets proper crispy. Then chop it up before you drop it in the main stew, once all the wet’s in.
This isn’t cassoulet, clearly but it does a decent imitation of a false cassoulet for something that doesn’t need (ie: I didn’t have) all the ingredients.
Anyone wondering why a vegan is cooking all this meat: look, even I know when I’m fighting a losing battle. I’ve done a few vegan stews and no one’s batted an eyelid about them but if I did it every time they’d all moan. Have to take the L and give people what they want occasionally.
Right, time to look like I’m actually paying attention to whatever bollocks the regulars are chatting tonight. And put some absolute shite on the jukebox, it is Monday after all.
Hazel