Smutje’s Otherday Stew

Smutje’ Otherday Stew (S.O.S. for short) will keep you warm when the weather is rough – on shifting or level ground (Rcp# 33).

Ingredients for ‘Smutje’s Otherday Stew’

• 10 large tobinambur roots (about 350 g cleaned and peeled, about 70 g more with peel)
• 80 – 100 g parsnips
• 40 – 50 g of parsley root
• 150 g fennel (equals the outer two layers of a large fennel)
• 150 g hoccaido pumpkin peel (equals the peel from a small hoccaido pumpkin)
• 240 g cooked chickpeas (from a jar/can, just the peas,you can use the ‘aquafaba’ elsewhere)
• 200 ml olive water (from olive jar, no spices added, preferably green, but dark will do)
• 1 ½ litres homemade broth (see ‘[Vegetable Broth’]
• 2 tablespoons apple pulp (apple sauce with no other additives, see [‘The Apple Pulp Connection’])
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup (rice syrup will work too)
• 2 teaspoons ginger in oil (see [‘The Princess of Oil Fruit‘] for instructions on how to make this, or use a large ginger ‘toe’ cut into very small pieces and add when adding the parsnips)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon of rosemary in oil (see [‘The Princess of the Oil Fruit‘] for instructions on how to make this, or you can put two sprigs of fresh rosemary in the cooking liquid from the start and take them out when the dish is finished).
• 1 teaspoon of mint in oil (see [‘The Princess of Oil Fruit‘] for instructions or you can also add two bags of pure peppermint tea to the cooking liquid from the start and remove them at the end).
• ½ teaspoon of bear’s garlic in oil (for a substitute, see ‘A few more options’ below)
• ½ teaspoon smoked sea salt
• a bit of freshly ground nutmeg (not a lot, just a hunch)

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Cooking Instructions for ‘Smutje’s Otherday Stew’

1. Wash/clean the parsnips, parsley roots and tobinambur. Peel them (keep the tops and skins for broth making) and cut them into even slices. The slices should be the same size as the thinnest part of the turnips (cut in half if the turnips or tobinambur are too large). Clean the fennel and cut off the hard parts (put them aside for the broth), then mince the fennel into small pieces (as you would an onion).
2. Heat the broth and when it comes to the boil, add the pumpkin peel (just the big pieces you cut off the pumpkin) and cook for about 8 – 12 minutes (if the pumpkin is ripe, 8 minutes, if it is still a little tougher, more like 12 minutes). Then reduce the heat to medium, remove the pumpkin peel with a skimmer and set aside.
3. Add the sliced parsnips, parsley root, tobinambur and fennel to the broth and cook for 15 minutes over a medium heat (barely boiling).
4. Reduce the heat to minimum and add the olive water, agave syrup, apple pulp, nutmeg, smoked sea salt and dried basil. Also add the ginger, rosemary and mint in oil if you have not already added those ingredients to the dish. Cut the pre-cooked pumpkin skins into thin strips and add them too.
5. Leave the stew to simmer at the lowest possible temperature for about 5-10 minutes, then turn up the heat and add the cooked chickpeas (only the chickpeas, not the liquid in the jar or tin). Boil up very briefly for about 3-5 minutes, then turn off the heat completely and remove the pot from the heat. Add the olive oil and bear’s garlic.

Makes 4-5 servings.

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A few more options:

• You can substitute red carrots for the parsley roots. The parsnips are a must, however, as the usual orange carrots are much sweeter and flatter in flavour.
• If you can’t get your hands on tobinambur (it should be available this time of year in storage from last year’s crop), use a very firm cooking potato instead and – after washing and peeling it – cut it into sugar-cube-sized pieces and cook it with the hoccaido pumpkin peel, taking it out and adding it later, just like the pumpkin peel. And – please, please, please – make your own broth (see [‘Vegetable Broth‘]). You will have plenty of cutting scraps (washed turnip peel and tops, hoccaido seeds… – you can also use them to make a broth. However, if they are from storage and not fresh, I’d rather not use potato peelings for the broth). A homemade broth really makes a big difference to the taste and nutritional value.
• If you have a limited supply of hoccaido pumpkins and want to make a big batch of stew, use the pumpkin peel (washed and roughly chopped) as described above, but also cut the pumpkin flesh into pieces (about twice the size of a sugar cube) and add them in the last 10 minutes of cooking the parsnips and tobinambur, otherwise they will fall apart.
• If you don’t have bear’s garlic, substitute half a pressed garlic head and a tablespoon of finely chopped chives.
• Yes, the olive water is really important here. If there is no way you can get some (try your friendly Italian restaurant around the corner, they usually throw out the liquid from the olive jars), replace it with a very small amount of a mild mustard or [‘Nustard‘], but read my instructions from [‘Shades of Amber‘] (ingredient special on mustard) first.

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Side Notes:

1. When I was creating this dish, I was trying to think of a name for it. So I closed my eyes and I saw this big ship in a harbour. And I remembered an adventure story I loved as a child by Robert L Stevenson: Treasure Island. It was especially the charismatic, cruel and somewhat shady character of Captain Silver that fascinated me at the time. While researching the background of this book, I found out that it was originally published as a series of adventure stories – for boys (well, even the best book must have some flaws ;-)) and it was called ‘The Sea Cook’. A perfect match! So here’s to you, old John Silver, you nasty pirate (with a bit of a golden heart after all), and my greatest respect to Robert Louis Stevenson for his masterpiece. It has inspired many and is still a classic that I love to read.
2. In his home town of Edinburgh, there is a section of the Writer’s Museum dedicated to him and the town also celebrates a ‘Robert Louis Stevenson Day’ every year. Following his travels, there are also Robert L Stevenson museums in St Helena in California and on Samoa.
3. For all you landlubbers and shorebirds out there: A smutje is a ship’s cook. Well, usually not a professional cook, but one of the crew who knows more about putting something edible on the table than the other people on board.

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