Recipe: Mushroom and Butter Bean Stew

Like I said in my last blog post, this is a work in progress as stew was what I had intended to cook, but clear soup was what I ended up with. Still tasted great though, and it looked very appetising to my colleagues when I had some at work.

INGREDIENTS

Mushrooms

Butter Beans

Potatoes

Carrots, or 1 large Carrot

Onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

Vegetable Stock

Herbs de Provences

Oil (preferably olive)

Step 1: Boil some water for the vegetable broth; if you don't have a kettle handy, boil the water in the pot/saucepan you will use to cook your stew in. Once the water is boiled, dissolve the vegetable stock cube in it.

Step 2: Peel and chop the potato and carrot into chunks.

Step 3: Warm up the stew pot/your largest saucepan with enough oil to cover the base. For most stews, olive oil is recommended, but I didn't have any at the time and used standard cooking oil, which worked fine.

Step 4: Once the pot/pan is warmed up, on a med-high heat, pour in the carrot and potato and stir frequently. If you haven't already, dice or chop the onion and garlic.

Step 5: After about 3-5 minutes of shallow-frying the hard vegetables, add in the garlic and onion and continue to stir frequently. It's recommended to turn down the heat a little. Also feel free to add the herbs de provences at this point, also use some black pepper and salt if you wish.

Step 6: Between the stirring, open and part-drain the tin of butter beans and chop the mushrooms. After a minute or two of stirring in the onion and garlic, as well as herbs/seasonings, the mushrooms and butter beans can be added in.

Step 7: The preserving liquid that accompanied the butter beans should begin to boil slightly, as the oil should have been used up by this point. The aroma from the cooking ingredients (as well as some cream coming out of the mushrooms - allegedly) should give away that everything is cooking nicely. Add more herbs if the smell isn't to your liking.

Step 8: Pour in the vegetable broth and turn heat down to relatively low once it begins to boil. Leave the stew to - um - stew for around 20 minutes or so. Smell and taste test in order to make sure it's ready.

Step 9: Serve with bread. :D