How many of you all throw things together and then have a hard time repeating it? I made some of the best ground venison vegetable soup this week I have ever made... I do this every so often when I have left overs I can use... This time I had some left over Mexican rice (been testing recipes for this for a while). I ended up putting some of the Mexican rice in the soup as a filler but dang was it really really good...
I am known for throwing things together and really liking it and then having a hard time repeating it...
I've always said that I've never made the same batch of chili twice. But at this point in my life, I rarely use a recipe anymore anyway. For 25 years, I've learned processes and methods specific to various styles of cooking. So now, I just whip something up. It's generally pretty repeatable at this point since I've dialed a lot of my processes in to be consistent. But most soups/stews for me follow this direction:
1) Brown the meat in a cast iron dutch oven (usually our enameled stuff). Absolute must to use animal fat of some type for browning, never vegetable oils. Butter, duck fat, bacon grease, beef tallow, etc.
2) Remove browned meat and set aside
3) In the hot pan, throw in a diced onion, add a healthy pinch of salt, and use the liquid it releases to scrape the browned bits off the bottom. If this is French based, add the rest of your carrot/celery mirepoix. If this is plain veggie soup, add your veggies. Season your onions with whatever herbs/seasoning you'll plan to use at this point
4) When the onion/veggie mix is done, throw in minced garlic. Add more butter if needed. Salt the garlic while it sautés
5) Add the meat back, mix it all up, and throw in a big dose of tomato paste.
Once the tomato pasted mix starts to cook and clump together, that's when your stock splashes in to clean off (deglaze) the bottom of the pan (not water, not broth, but STOCK). If it won't throw your recipe off, deglaze first with a half cup of red wine. Then add stock.
This is the basis for most of my one-pot cooking. Chili, stews, soups, braised roasts, etc. So it's not a recipe, but a procedure. Changing your flavors, ingredients, and styles won't change the method. You need BROWNED meat for good flavor. You need onions and salt for seasoning, and you need to use tomato paste and deglaze the pot for depth of flavor.
