Tuesday 7 June 2011

Pork and Sweet Potato Stew

It's less than a week til my final exams start here in Oxford, so obviously, it's time for comfort food. What better way than a nice thick stew?
I came up with this recipe a while back, an experiment with a beef stew would not thicken in time, so I saved the beefy tomato-y sauce in the freezer, then I used this as the basis for the original of this dish.
As failing to make beef stew to make sauce for another dish seems a little wasteful, I just used stock cubes and tomato puree this time.
For 3:
6 Pork Loin Steaks
1 Large Sweet Potato
250 g mushrooms
2 Beef Stock Cubes (Knorr)
Tomato Puree
Chilli Powder
Cumin
Cinnamon
Rosemary
Thyme
20g butter
300 ml Water
1 Saucepan

1. Melt the butter in the saucepan.
2. Chop the pork into roughly 1 cm wide strips across the loin steak. Fry the pork strips in the butter until lightly browned.
3. Peel and chop the sweet potato into large chunks. Mix them into the pan, coating them in any fat remaining in the pan.
4. Add 300 ml boiling water, tomato puree, stock cubes, chilli powder, cumin and cinnamon to the pan. Mix and heat until the tomato, spices and stock are dissolved into the water.
5. Cover the pan with a lid, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Remove the pan lid. Crush/mash the sweet potato pieces (I used a spoon) into the water, so it is a thick paste.
7. Chop medium mushrooms into quarters, any others to roughly the same size pieces. Add the mushrooms, rosemary and thyme to the pan and mix in.
8. Continue to simmer for 10-15, mixing frequently to prevent anything sticking to your pan bottom.

Volumise: Add some onions to the mix at roughly the same time as the mushroom.
Add carbs: Use more sweet potatoes.
Add fat: Add some coconut oil or more butter. Use fattier pork.
Add protein: Use more pork. Add more mushrooms.

I hope the extra pictures come in handy and give you a better impression of how I cook and what to do, I'm hoping to incorporate more pictures into the blog from now on. Also, here are some bonus pictures of it served up and the table where I prepare everything.
Finally, some link love for Modern Paleo Blog, who published me in their blog carnival this week. Lots more recipes and interesting discussion there.
Any questions, leave a comment.

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