Kitchen Sink Stew

by Mark “Gooch” Noguchi

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 lb meat, ground (beef, chicken, wild boar, deer, ect.)

1 each onion, diced

8 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup red wine *Or beer, sake, shochu, WHATEVAHZ

2 qts chicken stock

2 cans tomato, diced or crushed

2 Tbsp shoyu

1 tsp Hondashi, or mushroom powder

Optional:

2 each carrot, diced

2-3 each celery stalks, diced

1 lb potato, 'ʻulu, sweet potato or COOKED Taro, diced

1/2 head cabbage, diced

1 bunch green onion, sliced

*Optional As needed Neutral oil, like canola, sunflower etc. To taste Tabasco, hot sauce, chili peppah watah To taste Salt, Pepper If Needed Sugar

Directions

Get a large, heavy pot, ripping hot on the stove and add just enough oil to BARELY cover the bottom (you’re not deep frying). When you begin to see light wisps of smoke, add your meat, break it up with a spoon, and brown well.

Add onion with a nice pinch of salt and sauté for 2-3 minutes until it begins to turn translucent. Add the garlic and sauté. *PRO-TIP: Garlic has significantly less water content than onion. If you add it too early it can burn.

Add wine and deglaze, scraping up the good brown bits. That’s the FLAVOR! Cook down until the wine is almost evaporated (called “a sec,” in kitchen vernacular).

Add the stock, tomato, shoyu, hondashi, carrot and celery. Bring all that back up to a boil, then turn down to a simmer (think lazy bubble).

One more tip, offset your heat so that the simmering action pushes all that scum and foamy stuff to one side. Carefully skim and discard the foam.

Taste your stew, adjusting seasoning if desired, this is YOUR stew. Salt? Pepper? Little sweeter? This is YOUR stew, OWN IT! When carrots are about halfway, add your potato, ʻulu, whatever. Remember, if it’s taro, cook that ahead of time. When starches are pau, add cabbage and cook until tender.

Stir in green onion, and personally, I like to rest it overnight, always better the next day. CHEERING!