Our Southern Odyssey’s Apple Chicken Stew
This post is about, how to cook the most flavorful Apple Chicken Stew ever! When preparing a meal, choosing our Apple Chicken Stew is a great choice; because, it is a full-flavored dinner stew. If you are looking for a healthy, attractive dish that is rich in flavor, then this stew is for you. Healthy and well balanced meals can and should taste great and our Apple Chicken Stew hits the spot.
Our Apple Chicken Stew, is an all around great stew. The stew is balanced by having a good protein, sweet fruit and an arrangement of colorful vegetables. What is convenient about this stew is everything goes into a single kettle. Which makes clean up easier. Furthermore, to make this mouthwatering recipe, we are only going to need nine tools.
Start with a large kettle, preferably stainless steel or a ceramic over cast iron dutch oven. Either one will work great for this recipe. Go ahead and place the cookware on the eye, but don’t turn the eye on at this time. We need to measure out two cups of apple juice in our measuring cup, and add it to the pot first. This is going to makeup our base, and give the stew its sweet taste. Then were going to measure out 1/2 cup of beet juice and add it to the pot. This alone with the spices will help ground the sweetness of the apple juice. Were looking for just the right amount of sweet flavor for our stew. Do not put the measuring cup in the sink just yet, we are going to need it again later on. So set it to the side for now.
Next we need to add some spices and seasoning to the stew. We will use our measuring spoons to measure out one teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, black pepper and basil. I love the smell of basil. Don’t you? You might be thinking; “Only 1/4 teaspoon?” When it comes to dry ingredients a little goes a long way. So do not go over board here. After we add all the dry seasoning to the pot we need to add one tablespoon liquid ginger, to give the stew a little heat. Also add one tablespoon of coconut oil to the pot as well. We are now finished with the measuring spoons.
Now take twelve chicken thighs, making sure there are no bones in them, and hand place them individually into the juice, in the bottom of the pot. We use dark meat for its rich flavor and tenderness. Once we have all the chicken thighs in the juice, we need to wash our hands and dry them. Now turn on the eye, to high heat. We need the juice to come to a boil. When we see that steady boil, cover the pot with a lid and turn the eye down to simmer. Let’s set our timer for thirty minutes. As the chicken is cooking within the juice of the apple, beet and ginger, a rich flavorful aroma will fill the kitchen. While the meat is cooking, let’s take this time to prepare our vegetables and fruit.
Apple Chicken Stew, is an arrangement of Autumn’s best seasonal foods. However, you can find these fresh ingredients year round in your local grocery store. For this part of the recipe we will be using our cutting board, chef and paring knife, our vegetable peeler and a bowl. Right now we need our cutting board and chef knife. Now let’s chop one celery stalk into one half inch crescent moons. The celery will bring some crunch to the stew. Place the chopped celery in a large bowl and set aside. Next with our vegetable peeler, peel four carrots, then still using our cutting board and chef knife cut the ends off the carrots and put them to the side. You can use traditional orange carrots. However, sometimes here in the South we are able to find organic colorful carrots in shades of purple, yellow, orange and white. We prefer using the colorful carrots when making this stew. They add more color to the dish. We are going to go ahead and chop the carrots. We need to cut them in about half inch rounds. Place the carrots in the bowl with the celery. No stew in the South would be complete without sweet potatoes. Next let’s peel our two medium sweet potatoes, and cut them in half, then cut the half’s into half, and chop to about half inch thick cubes. Then take and put the sweet potato cubes in the large bowl with the celery and carrots. Next take the paring knife and peel our two apples. You can use Fuji, Honeycrisp, Pink Lady or your favorite cooking apple that is sweet. I would not recommend using a Red Delicious apple, as they will fall apart while cooking in the stew. After the apples are peeled, take the core out and chop the apples into about half inch cubes. Place the apple cubes into the bowl. Now it is time to chop our onions. I like to do this last. Cut the onion in half through the roots with all the skin left on it. Then peal the skin off leaving the roots in tack. Next chop the onion into small pieces to the root. Add the chopped onion to your bowl. Put the root to the side. (By leaving the roots on, the onion will be a lot friendlier and not make you cry.)
Our thirty minutes should be up now. Let’s remove the lid from the pot and add one last cup of apple juice to the pot and then take the onions, celery, carrots, sweet potatoes and apples and add them to the pot. Turn the eye back to high heat, stir and wait until the stew begins to boil again. Then reduce the heat back to simmer and cover with the lid. Again we are going to set the timer for thirty minutes. This gives the vegetables time to become tender.
I really love making Apple Chicken Stew, because the sweet aroma fills the kitchen. When you take that first bite, you taste the full-flavor of the stew, where one flavor does not outweigh the others. All the ingredients accentuate each other in the most perfect way. The beauty of the dish with the orange, purple, white, greens and browns are so appealing to the eye as the bowl sits on the table. The warm steam surrounds the bowl with its rich fragrant aroma. Even the juice from the stew has gathered all the flavors together in a deliciously palatable way. This is truly one of my favorite stews, and I hope that it will be one of yours as well.
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