Tonight's dinner was a a Rocky Mountain take on the Polish favorite, bigos. Bigos is a traditional hunters stew from Poland utilizing several different kinds of meat and is heavy on the sauerkraut. I use about 3 pounds of the stuff when making bigos. Bigos take about four hours to cook in the dutch oven and the result is a thick mixture that tastes like a little bit of heaven in a bowl.
This recipe is geared more towards the foods found in mountains where we live. I included onions, peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, chicken, italian sausage, smoked sausage and leftover pork chops. These are similar ingredients, other than substituting potatoes for sauerkraut, and all are easily obtained here in our little hamlet. A better hunter would have used wild game for this including venison, elk, and antelope in the mix but this year I am a bit short on wild game so I had to resort to using what was available at the grocery store.
I started by cooking up the italian sausage, chicken, smoked sausage and 2 left over pork chops in the dutch oven with 1/2 of an onion, approximately 4 cloves of garlic, 1 finely diced serrano pepper, and 1/2 of a red, yellow and orange bell pepper. This was seasoned with salt, black pepper, paprika and cooked in marsala cooking wine until the italian sausage was cooked through. To this mix one can of diced tomatoes was added along with 8 cubed potatoes, 2 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup water and about 1/2 cup marsala. I used marsala cooking wine for liquid but beer could be used also. Personally, I prefer to use wine in a recipe like this because of the taste. This was left in the dutch oven until the potatoes were cooked through.
To complete the meal we served rolls with the stew and the result was a slightly spicy stew great to help keep you warm on a cold evening.
As a side note remember to watch the amount of seasonings you add. I added enough to make this just right to my taste but it was a little on the warm side for my kids :)
This recipe is geared more towards the foods found in mountains where we live. I included onions, peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, chicken, italian sausage, smoked sausage and leftover pork chops. These are similar ingredients, other than substituting potatoes for sauerkraut, and all are easily obtained here in our little hamlet. A better hunter would have used wild game for this including venison, elk, and antelope in the mix but this year I am a bit short on wild game so I had to resort to using what was available at the grocery store.
I started by cooking up the italian sausage, chicken, smoked sausage and 2 left over pork chops in the dutch oven with 1/2 of an onion, approximately 4 cloves of garlic, 1 finely diced serrano pepper, and 1/2 of a red, yellow and orange bell pepper. This was seasoned with salt, black pepper, paprika and cooked in marsala cooking wine until the italian sausage was cooked through. To this mix one can of diced tomatoes was added along with 8 cubed potatoes, 2 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup water and about 1/2 cup marsala. I used marsala cooking wine for liquid but beer could be used also. Personally, I prefer to use wine in a recipe like this because of the taste. This was left in the dutch oven until the potatoes were cooked through.
To complete the meal we served rolls with the stew and the result was a slightly spicy stew great to help keep you warm on a cold evening.
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