Secrets of Old Virginia Brunswick Stew

viking72 said:

Bo, did you add any cayenne peppers or salt?

Later,
Doug

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Yep, see the post with the recipe in it below.

Here is the recipe I used at the fundraiser. Of course, it's scaled down to family size.

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3 slices of bacon, diced
1 onion, diced
1 28oz can whole tomatoes, chopped
2 cups diced potatoes
28 oz baby lima beans , frozen (if canned, three 15 oz cans)
15 oz can sweet corn
water
2 tsp sugar
salt
pepper
cayenne
1/2 stick of unsalted butter

Add chicken, bacon, and onions to the pot. Cover with water and simmer until the chicken can be shred. Add potatoes and tomatoes with the tomato juice from the can. Let cook until potatoes can be mashed. Use a potato masher in the pot to mash the contents. The chicken should be turned to strings and the potatoes and tomatoes mashed.

Add beans and enough water to cover (if needed). Add sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp cayenne. Let cook until beans are done.

Add corn and butter. When the butter is melted, season to taste using salt, pepper, cayenne, sugar (it shouldn't be sweet; the sugar is needed to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes).

If it's too thick, add the juice from the corn and water as needed. About 15 minutes after adding the corn, the stew is ready to eat.

Virginia Brunswick Stew Notes

The stew should be stirred often to prevent scorching.

Squirrel is the first meat of choice followed by chicken. After those, veal, lamb, or rabbit are acceptable. A mix of chicken and veal is also authentic. Barbecued pork, pigs feet or liver are not traditional Virginia Brunswick stew ingredients.

Some old timers used to either mash the corn before adding it to the pot or they split each row of kernels with a knife while the corn was still on the cobs, cut it off the cob and added it to the pot.

Some old timers would add bread crumbs during the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Ground cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes or pods are acceptable. Louisiana style hot sauce should never be used in a Virginia Brunswick stew.

Some cooks in the late 19th century added ingredients like okra and Worcestershire sauce.

There is a report of a fellow in Brunswick, Virginia that added a little brandy or Madeira wine to the recipe.

Proper Virginia Brunswick stew should have the consistency of head cheese when it's cold. This is a result of slow cooking the chicken, bacon and onions and mashing up the potatoes.

You should be able to eat the stew with a fork when it's hot.

jermoQ said:

I am getting that on my to do list for the holidays! Hope my dad will see around the Lima beans.

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Generally, the proportions of the ingredients can be varied as long as you still have enough potatoes to help thicken the stew. So, less beans, more tomatoes, etc. is up to the cook.