Last week, my apartment in the East Village was without electricity or cell phone service from Monday night to Friday evening due to Hurricane Sandy, and I remained in the powerless Village until Friday afternoon. While the damage that the hurricane has done is severe, I like to view my experience in a positive light.
Thankfully, my apartment was fairly well off, in that we had running water, hot water, and gas that still worked even though the power was out.
My favorite outcome of the week is a new dish, which was concocted with a desire to use up perishables before they would spoil. Even with this humble purpose, it turned out to be incredibly tasty and my roommates and I named it Hurricane Stew.
Because the nature of the dish was to make a wholesome meal out of a seemingly random assortment of goods, it is fair to say that the recipe is not by any means an exact science and can and should be modified for the circumstances. Also, the quantities of ingredients were basically random, so I will not attempt to list amounts.
The base of the stew is a generic bag of pea soup mix (actually 2 bags) with some chopped up hot dogs and hamburger meat to make it heartier. On top of that was some uncooked rice along with various spices and sauces that I will list below.
- Worschester sauce
- Honey BBQ sauce
- Ketchup, Onions
- Jalapenos
- Onion Powder
- Crushed Red Pepper
- Chili Powder
- Pepper
- Garlic Powder
All of the ingredients goes into a pot of water, brought to a boil, and is let to simmer for at least 2 hours. We found that the longer we kept it simmering, the better it became, as is true with most stews. The final product had a beautiful reddish color and a thick but still soupy consistency. Serve it hot and enjoy.
I intend to experiment in the future with adding chicken (with bone) instead of the hamburger meat. The stew may also benefit from vegetables if available.
