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My Granny’s North Carolina Brunswick Stew

Crock pots: two, 6-7 quarts each (each will be about ¾ full of stew)

Ingredients:

1-1/2 lbs of chicken (we used chicken breasts)
1-1/2 lbs of stew beef (bought it already cut up for stew)
1 onion (medium to large), diced
2-1/2 lbs of potatoes, peeled and diced fairly small (red potatoes are what we used)
60 ounces of canned tomatoes - we used 2 (28 oz) cans of diced tomatoes & ½ cup of crushed tomatoes (you could leave this ½ cup out or just use more diced tomatoes & probably be ok)
2 (15 oz) cans of (small) lima beans (drained)
2 (15 oz) cans of corn (drained)
32 oz. chicken stock
2 Tablespoons + 1 Tablespoon of sugar (or to taste)
2 Teaspoons of ground black pepper (or to taste)
2 Teaspoons of salt (or to taste)
¼ cup of butter (4 Tablespoons)
Optional: 4-6 shakes of Tabasco sauce, Texas Pete or whatever you like (or to taste)

Directions:

The beef/chicken can be fresh or frozen. Put the stew beef and chicken breasts in a large pot, add two cups of water and boil it all until the chicken is very tender. The stew beef will still be tough at this point, although it will be totally cooked through. Dice up the chicken meat and split the chicken meat and stew beef between the two crock pots . Take the juice left over in the pot and split that between the crock pots as well.

Peel and dice the potatoes & put half in each crock pot.

Peel & dice the onion and put half in each crock pot.

Drain and put 1 can of corn and 1 can of lima beans in each crock pots.

Put a can of diced tomatoes (undrained) in each crock pot.

Put 1/4 cup of crushed tomatoes in each crock pot.

Add two cups of chicken stock to each crock pot.

Put 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt & 1 teaspoon black pepper in each crock pot.

Add 2 Tablespoons butter (¼ stick) to each crock pot. (Note: don’t leave this out – I skimped on it in batch #1 & mom immediately said ‘something is not right’. Just as butter ‘finishes’ a sauce & gives it a rich, good ‘mouth feel’, the butter has the same effect on the stew, plus I think it helps keep the stew from sticking/burning to the sides of the crock pot)

Stir all to combine.

Turn crock pots on high for 1-2 hours until stew is really cooking, then turn crock pots down to the next setting (medium or low - however your crock pot works).

Let the stew cook for at least 20 hours total. Stir occasionally and add chicken broth if the stew gets too thick and looks like it needs more liquid to avoid burning (it will probably get a dark ring around the edges). Of course, you can cook it for a much shorter time, but you won’t have anything near a real Brunswick Stew. This long, slow cooking is critical to the taste and texture of the stew.

After 20 hours, take a potato masher and mash the stew until the meat is broken up and at least half or more of the potatoes are mashed. The stew will be somewhat thick yet still have some chunky vegetables.

To do the final seasoning adjustment, we combined the stew from both crock pots in the bottom half of a roasting pan and adjusted the seasoning for the batch as a whole.

Taste test the stew – add the 3rd tablespoon of sugar if you think you need it and the Tabasco or hot sauce (if you like some heat). Thin the stew with some chicken stock if it is too thick for your liking. Note: my mom is going for a particular taste remembered from childhood …. to stew batch #2, in addition to the seasonings mentioned in the ingredients, she added another teaspoon of black pepper, another teaspoon of sugar and we used a salt shaker to lightly sprinkle on a little salt (maybe an 1/8 of a teaspoon?) before she liked the final product. Since you are not trying to get to a ‘memory taste’, just season (or not) until you like the result.

COOL the stew within two hours & refrigerate or freeze. We set the roasting pan in a large cooler on top of 5lbs. of ice that was dumped in it. We stirred the stew every ½ hour. After one hour (two stirrings), the stew was cool – we let it go one more half hour & it was a bit ‘chilled’ and ready to put into smaller containers for eating over the next couple of days and/or freezing (it freezes well).

This makes about 5-6 quarts of stew.