03 February 2008

Gluten Free Tips: Making Chicken Stew

I've never eaten a stew that I didn't make. Why? Because I've always had tastes fairly orthogonal to most Americans. And, in fact, I never made a stew before finding out I was gluten-intolerant. I'll tell you my process, but I can't say how it compares to how anyone else might go about making a stew.



Ingredients:
Pictured above are the primary ingredients besides chicken: two (large) cloves garlic, one sweet onion, 4 bell peppers (2 red and 2 yellow), quite a lot of shiitake mushrooms (stems removed), and four carrots, all chopped into sizes that will fit in a spoon. I didn't actually measure, but there's probably about 1.5-2 cups of each of these. As for the chicken, I baked 5 boneless-skinless-breasts for about an hour, and wound up with roughly twice as much chicken as any of the pictured ingredients. I also put in a cup of wild rice and a cup of quinoa, after rinsing them well. Other than that, I used a bit of olive oil and whatever spices I had on hand that smelled good to me (today: chili pepper, cardamom, basil, red pepper, garam masala, oregano, rosemary, tarragon, marjoram, turmeric, thyme, sage).

Method:
Wrap chicken breasts individually in foil and put in to bake at 350° F. Chop all the vegetables, mushrooms, etc, and peel the garlic cloves while the chicken is baking. Rinse rice/quinoa or whatever grain you decide to use. Heat olive oil on low heat in a large stewpot. Mince the garlic (I used a garlic press) and add to the heated oil. Add the onions. Let them saute until the onions are roughly transparent. This is a good time to add any spices that you want. Then add the bell peppers, let simmer a bit, and then the rinsed rice/quinoa/etc. and stir. You may need to increase the heat as you keep adding things. Next add the mushrooms, and finally the carrots. If you time things just right, the chicken will get done as you start to add ingredients, and you can chop it into bite size pieces between adding things. Add about two cups of water after all the vegetables are in and start adding the chopped chicken. If you use roughly the same amount of ingredients as I did, you'll probably need 6 cups of water total. This is also where I add the salt, so that it can dissolve in the water rather than coating the ingredients directly. When the chicken and all the water are in the pot, bring to a boil, then put a lid on it and turn down to low heat and let simmer for about an hour. Wild rice sometimes takes longer to get done: when nearly all the grains have split open, it's done. The quinoa will have been done long since.

Serve

A few notes:

If you're serving this to a large group, you may need to add water as it cooks. I generally don't, because it's easier for me to take to work with me if it's a bit dry. I then add water before heating it back up.

Regular rice works fine, and will cook more quickly than wild rice. Probably any GF grain you like will work. I've also used GF noodles instead of rice on occasion. That may require adjusting the amount of water.

As the chicken cooks, a clear liquid will leak out of it. Some save this as chicken stock; I generally just add it to the stew.

The cloves of garlic I had today were extra-large. With smaller cloves, I generally use four.

My favorite thing to do is to make some fresh GF bread to serve with the stew. However, this generally requires better organizations skills than I possess; i.e getting the bread done before starting the chicken cooking.

As far as ingredients go, add whatever sounds good to you that you don't mind chopping up. I often use jicama. It's the only vegetable I've found that actually stays crisp after boiling for an hour. I also like to add other peppers besides bells (the hotter the better). I've put zucchini in it, or asparagus, or bok choy. On a time-crunch, desperado day, I've used frozen pre-chopped veggies. It turns out better with fresh, but the frozen ones weren't too bad.

Final thought: I wouldn't buy a pre-made chicken stew that did not specifically say "gluten free" on the label. Even if there's nothing suspicious in the ingredients, if the company makes anything-noodle-soup, there's probably cross-contamination. And as I've never had any interest in pre-made stews, I can't tell you which (if any) are safe.

Gluten Free Tips Index

6 comments:

John said...

I only rarely make chicken stew, but it's pretty similar.

I don't bake the chicken, though. I heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or stockpot, and cook the chicken (covered) in it. Once done, I remove the chicken, and cook the garlic (I use 4-6 large cloves) and onions in the juice.

The "no measuring, use whatever seems good" is my method as well.

Qalmlea said...

I hadn't thought of simmering the chicken in the same pot... it would be one less dish to wash, though. ^/^

I do measure the water and the grains, but that's about it. There's not much point to measuring everything else.

John said...

I have always used root vegetables (potatoes, parsinips, 1/2 turnip). I haven't ever used grains, but it sounds good, maybe I will next time.

Qalmlea said...

I've used parsnips a few times. The flavor was a bit overpowering the last time, so I haven't tried one since. Never tried turnips, though.

John said...

If you thought parsnips had too strong a flavor, stay away from the turnips.

Qalmlea said...

LOL. Thanks for the tip. And the first few times I used parsnips, it turned out okay. I think the last one must have just been stronger than the others I'd used.