Simply Tweaked Haitian Stew (Soup Joumou)

Pretty much every year I look forward to having this stew. Why you ask? Well every year on January first my mother makes this. It is a traditional meal to celebrate Haitian independence day. But, there are times I cannot wait a whole year for this yummy stew, like now...so I made it.

I always feel like I should consult my mother to re-tell me how to make this so I don't stray to far from the recipe.

But I still like to make it my own. The original recipe calls for squash, but I decided to use pumpkin instead. Tis the season!

I just love the feeling of picking my own fresh veggies and cooking with it, it is very rewarding!

I ended up taking this little guy home with me!

So I broke down this missive delicious pumpkin (used about half of it and stored the rest), cooked it in chicken stalk, and pureed it with sauteed garlic and shallots.

To accompany it, I quartered 6 small yukon gold potatoes, chopped cabbage, 4 celery stalks chopped, 5 small carrots chopped, and a pound of browned stewed beef. I placed all of this in a slow cooker, stirred in salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and my piece de resistance; two scotch bonnet peppers. These peppers pack quite a kick, but no worries, you can put them in your stew whole so it will still have the flavor of the pepper but not the heat. I, on the other hand, made a tiny slit on the ends of them and popped them in. I try to live dangerously. 

Put your slow cooker on low and cook the stew for 4-6 hours on low or 2-3 hours on high. Make sure to have a pretty large slow cooker, when the cabbage cooks it does let out some liquid, and could possibly over flow (I speak from experience).

Once the time is up salt and pepper to taste and there you have it, a simply tweaked Haitian independence day meal!

Simply Tweaked Haitian Stew (Soup Joumou)

1 pound stewed beef

6 small yukon gold potatoes quartered

1/2 cabbage chopped

1/2 medium pumpkin chopped

1 Tbs garlic

3 Shallots chopped

2 Scotch Bonnet peppers

Garlic powder

Onion powder

4 small celery stalks chopped

1 32 oz. Chicken Stock

5 Small carrots chopped

1 Tbs butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Take your chopped pumpkin and place in a deep heavy bottomed pot. Pour in chicken stock and cook on medium-high heat for 20-25 minutes or until fork tender.
2. In a hot pan add a table spoon of butter, add in your chopped shallots and cook for 2 minutes on medium low heat until softened, add in your garlic and cook for another 1 minute. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. In the same pan, on medium high heat, place another tablespoon of butter and melt, add in your stewed beef and cook until browned. Set aside.
4. Once your pumpkin is cooked, ladle you pumpkin and chicken stock into a blender adding in your sauteed shallots and garlic. Blend until pureed. If the base is too thick, add a little more chicken stock. Add in your garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper to taste and blend until combined.
5. Place chopped cabbage, chopped celery, chopped carrots, quartered potatoes, scotch bonnet peppers (with slit at the bottom to make spicy, or without slit at the bottom), browned stewed beef (do not add the juices that come off of them), and pureed pumpkin into your slow cooker and cook on low for 4-6 hours or on high for 2-3 hours. 
6. Make sure to check that your potatoes are fork tender.

Try out this simply tweaked recipe and let me know what your tweaks are!