Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Sausage, Potato, and Zucchini Stew – Ugly Never Tasted So Good

I've decided to determine the length of my blog posts by the beauty of the recipe displayed therein. It's a very logical system. If a recipe produces a batch of stunningly beautiful photos, then I'll write a long, wordy post (including gratuitous name-dropping and self-serving anecdotes) to give the reader plenty of time to soak it all in.

However, if the recipe looks like this Sausage, Potato, and Zucchini Stew, then the shorter the post, the better – a couple of short sentences and on to the video. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but not in this case. Visually, this is truly dreadful. It's a good thing this vegetable stew is so easy, nutritious, and delicious!

I used a spicy, garlicky andouille sausage here, but any spicy link will do. We've covered the glut of late summer zucchini before on this blog, and this is another great remedy. Well, I've subjected you to this grotesque image long enough, so I'll mercifully end the post. Enjoy!




Ingredients:
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound spicy smoked sausage
1 onion, chopped
6 zucchini, cut in 2-inch pieces
1 1/2 pound small Yukon gold potatoes, cut same size as zucchini
1 quart vegetable or chicken broth
water as needed
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 bay leaf
few springs of fresh thyme
1 tablespoon sliced fresh chives (and/or any fresh herb)
handful of "sweet 100" cherry tomatoes
*some crusty bread wouldn't be a bad idea

24 comments:

Jesse from Detroit said...

I think it looks beautiful... but then again, I'm an inner beauty kinda guy.

San-Man said...

Looks awesome, I'm definitely going to make this someday. How about adding some corn??

Chef John said...

literally, any seasonal veggies are great in this.

Dave said...

Chef John, I really think you are the best candidate for the food network challenge! I've watched all of the videos and really yours was the best (I really wouldn't have taken time to write this if it wasn't). Hope you win and if you agree with me, vote here!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=foodnetworktv

Chef John said...

Thanks!!

Heather0301 said...

Chef do you have any good home made jam recipes??? Ive always wanted to learn how to make jam.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea for this stew but, after cooking for an hour, doesn't the zucchini get really squishy? I hate squishy things. When I worked in a nursing home, I had to feed squishy food to old people. That really left a bad taste in my mouth...no pun intended.

Jonathan said...

you said zucchini is the world's blendest vegetable man you are wrong or you never heard abaout chayote (chuchu) here in brasil we usually makes chuchu with shrimp and we say that has the flavor of shrimp hehe is sooooooooooooooo blend way blend then zucchini 1000 []'s from here love ya
:P aldought you don't publish my commets some times

Unknown said...

man, this looks deeeee-lish.
and I LOVE zucchini.
Thanks!!

Oliver James Spicer said...

I think I speak for everyone when I say Chef John FTW (in the competition :D)

Neetz said...

that is an awesome dish!!..

http://neetzkitchen.blogspot.com

Sweet Monkey Fritters said...

The Gene Simmons of stews! Bwa-hahahahahahaha! FTW!!!

Sweet Monkey Fritters said...

The Gene Simmons of stews! Bwa-hahahahahaha! FTW!

Anonymous said...

Howdy. This stew sounds delicious. I don't care what stews look like so much--cause its a stew. They have to have the taste that blows me away. This is why I love Indian food--usually looks like it came out of a used diaper but the flavors & spices and taste is always fantastic!

Congrats Chef John--great to see Food Network TV has you in the YT finals. Went to cast my vote and it looks like you could win this huge. All I saw in the comments was a Chef John-gasm type of overwhelming response page after page after page in the comments section. You are truly loved and appreciated for all you have done for us little folks, and we are happy we could voice our views & appreciation of your excellent teachings. You deserve the recognition and thensome. When you teach someone to cook you teach them joy for life.

Chef John said...

Thanks!!

Unknown said...

If You jump to TFN will You find time to continue this great site?

Anonymous said...

Chef I love this idea! BTW I don't see the onion on your ingredient list...

Anonymous said...

I made this yesterday and it tasted great and was super easy to make. I wasn't crazy about the uncooked cherry tomatoes, they where to sweet for me. When I reheated it today I heated with the rest of the cherry tomatoes I had and liked them a lot more after they had been cooked just a little.

Anonymous said...

did you parboil the potatoes?

Chef John said...

nope, no need to.

Anonymous said...

I used basil instead of chives, cause that's what I had. Yum .

Anonymous said...

We tried this stew made with leftover bratwurst and flavored with star anise, excellent. It went quite well with Holiday Pumpkin Bread made with hard red wheat flour (to go with a bottle of red wine) and an old recording of cavalleria rusticana. Many thanks!

Junk_Food_Addict said...

I added some carrots to it and it was delicious! Thanks!

cookinmom said...

Awe man...this is just awesome! I keep coming back to this recipe to get rid of all my end of the season veggies. I also added in corn, beans, spinach, peas, red pepper, whatever I could find in the fridge or freezer. You can't go wrong with this!!! So simple but yet so good! Tks chef for such an easy, satisfying, comfort food recipe!!