Mystery Stew

Did you ever decide to cook something only to find out that you can't find the ingredients? Well, that happened to me today and that was really the reason why I thought I'd post about cooking here. It can be hard to find ingredients in Port Moresby so sometimes, you will find your expensive cookbook useless.

 

Today, I went to the supermarket to try my hand at making spicy lemon pork. Unfortunately, 3 of the main flavour ingredients are not in stock so I shrugged and thought I'd try to make my mum's stew. But again, most of the ingredients aren't available. So I do what I normally do - I improvised. The result is a stew with no name. It's a hodge podge of my influences but it turned out alright.

 

Mystery Stew

 

The ingredients:

 

500 grams Pork cubes

3pcs Barbeque Sausages

1 large brown onion

1 small clove garlic

1 tin tomato puree

1 tin diced tomatoes

1 small tin corn

1 small tub thickened cream

1 tin chopped button mushrooms

A few olives to chop and throw in

3 small cooking bananas

150 grams Gouda cheese

Italian Seasoning to taste

Salt to taste

2 tbsp Sugar

Olive oil

 

The procedure:

 

In a pot, boil some water. Once it has come to a rolling boil, throw in your pork and sausages. After 5 minutes, take out all your meat and throw the water and set the meat aside. Chop your onions and smash your garlic. Slice your bananas length-wise. Get a frying pan and fry the bananas one side at a time. Let the bananas caramelize (browning) and take them out. Get a stew pot and put in some olive oil and brown the onions and garlic inside. Once they are brown, throw in your tomato puree, diced tomatoes, corn, mushrooms and meat. Throw in your bananas then pour in your cream and mix. Sprinkle the italian herbs into the stew and mix. Get the sugar and mix it in. Now cube the cheese (to make it melt faster) and gently put it in the stew. Let it melt and then mix it all together. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve!

Now for the photos:

the ingredients - not shown are the garlic and sugar.

prepare the meat.

throw it in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes.

while waiting, chop the onions.

using a knife, pound the garlic.

take out the meat.

slice the bananas. cooking bananas are starchy and are like potatoes. you can also use sweeter bananas.

fry the bananas.

brown the onions and garlic.

prepare your sauce and "chunky" ingredients.

pour in the tomato ingredients.

throw in the bananas.

throw in the mushrooms.

put in the corn.

get the olives in.

pour in the cream.

sprinkle the italian herbs.

throw in the meat.

cut up the cheese.

throw in the cheese.

put 2 tablespoons of sugar.

and here's my mystery chunky stew! yum!

Tips: Once you've browned the onions and garlic and put in the tomato puree, it doesn't really matter in what order you throw the other ingredients in. You can change the meat for other meats too as well as the other "filler" ingredients like corn and mushrooms. The most important thing here is to keep these ingredients:

• tomato puree/sauce/paste
• onion
• garlic
• thickened cream
• soft cheese (you can exchange this for a hard cheese too but you'd have to simmer the stew longer for the cheese to thoroughly melt and infuse the stew with its flavour)

Enjoy your weekend!