I made this up the other day and it turned out pretty darn good. Plus it’s reasonably priced with bison stew meat going for $7.49 a pound at Whole Foods. There’s very little precision to it, it’s “old school, your grandma has leftovers and she threw them all in the pot” stew but it’s tasty and healthy.
1 lb bison stew meat cubed
1 onion chopped
enough garlic to make you happy, chopped
1 large sweet potato rough chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (I used one with peppers and onions)
Any root veggies you want (I didn’t have any on hand but I bet rutabagas would be good)
1 can of diced green chilies
1 jar of Tikka Masala sauce (or cream of mushroom soup or whatever floats your boat)
saute the onions and garlic in olive oil for a couple of minutes until they are translucent. Add the stew meat and brown on medium high heat. Dump that into a slow cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir it a couple of times. Cook on low for 5–6 hours.
The sweet potatoes are a nice contrast to the chilies and tikka sauce. This would probably work well with any game meat.
Instead of the added sauce or CoM soup, you might try lightly coating the cubed meat in flour before you brown. Once the liquid (stock is best) is added you get a nice thickened gravy. Switch to a can of whole tomatoes that you crush, and use fresh, roasted and peeled chilies and you have no processed foods (other than the tomatoes, but they’re whole, so very little processing)
Mmm, I like your idea especially removing most of the processed foods from the stew. Of course, I’m trying to avoid flour which poses a problem but I might have to give that a try next time since I’m a fan of gravy. Mmm gravy.
If you’re trying to go gluten free, there are alternatives like potato starch. It won’t behave the exact same way and you should add it in a slurry, but you get a similar result. Same goes for corn starch or tapioca.
If you want to stay away from all flours, try adding fresh chopped okra and/or gumbo file powder (sassafras leaves). If you go with file powder, you’ll need to add it just before the end of cooking and not while boiling.
It’ll take a try or two to get the hang of using them, but they are excellent natural thickeners for soups or stews.
Ooo, hadn’t thought of tapioca. And I have a ton of okra fresh from the garden right now so I might be trying that tonight. I’ll have to pick up some more bison stew meat and some tapioca this weekend and throw together another experiment.