
A long time ago my mom used to cook the shit out of pork and beef roasts. Truth be known I was in a recent session with Vikram Vij and he also advised his mom would cook the shit out of things to, so I blame him for my potty mouth. The only way I could choke down her roasts was to smother them in HP Sauce – more truths. This continued mistreatment of roasts while I was a child led me to have trust relationships with roast beef. I do enjoy beef, like I really really enjoy steak, satay, stir-fry. We also enjoy roasts on a regular basis as a family, however I still am not a huge fan of roast beef. But I will eat it.

This leads us to stew, another cut I have a strange relationship with. Possibly for the same reasons – it was made regularly and slightly over cooked. My family enjoys stew so it’s made flavourful and moist in this house. Mostly.

In my quest to love stew, I added some sauteed mushrooms, chopped chives and broken chunks of double cream brie. And a few hot pepper flakes. Go big or go home right? Guess what? I LOVED it! We get a flavour punch from adding leftover frozen beef broth from our last Teriyaki Beef Fondue. What you’ve never had a beef broth fondue? You really should. Regular beef broth is also dandy in a handy. Finally some leftover parsnips resembling potatoes went into the stew and nobody was the wiser (winning).

I finished the stew with a few sprinkles of hot pepper flakes cause I like the heat!