Anime Food!: Brock's Cream Stew

Hello again!  My apologies for taking so long to make another 'Anime Food' post.  Enjoy!

During my childhood days of watching Pokemon, I would often see Brock cooking this white stew thing.  It would look so yummy but I had no idea what it was..  And even though my entire family and extended family was Japanese, none of them ever made something like this.  (T__T)  The closest thing I got was corn chowder.

Only recently did I discover that it's called cream stew and luckily, it's quite the easy recipe. ^^

I remember the very first time I made this.  I used a cream stew mix pack from the store (the one that has the blocks that you melt in the pot).  That turned out pretty bad so I highly recommend people make this one from scratch.  It's really does taste so much better this way. 

I'm lazy so instead of having the pretty diced pieces of carrot, I threw in some baby carrots.  XD

Close up ;3

I found this recipe on Little Japan Mama's recipe blog.  I tried her recipe first but after finding I didn't prefer the outcome of the stew's consistency, I modified the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

Cream Roux

- 3 cups milk (add more if you want a more liquid consistency)

- 4 tbsp butter

- 1/3 cup flour (add more if you want a thicker consistency)

- carrots (1/2 bag of baby carrots or 2 large carrots)

- 1 potato

- 1 bunch of broccoli (crown part)

- 1/2 yellow onion

- 1 small tray of chicken 

- 1 tbsp vegetable oil

- salt/pepper for taste

In my opinion, the best way to start this recipe is by prepping the vegetables and chicken.  First I slice and dice the carrots and potato.  I put those in a covered pyrex bowl and microwave them for around 2 minutes each, take them out and poke them with a toothpick to check, and then zap them again in the microwave for another 1-2 minutes.

Meanwhile, I blanch the broccoli in boiling water, 2 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other side.  If you have a large pot that submerges the entire bunch of broccoli, just 2 minutes should be enough.  Once it's blanched, chop off the top part of the broccoli (the crown) and rip it into bite size pieces.

After finishing all that, I dice up the chicken and onion and fry those until they're cooked.  

Now it's time to work on that cream roux.  Pour the milk into a (large) pot and add the flour and butter.  Stir all of that on low heat, slowly turning up the heat until the mixture thickens.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Feel free to add other seasonings as well such as parsley. 

*If you want a thicker mixture, add more flour. 

*If you want a more liquidy mixture, add more milk.

Once the cream roux is at the consistency and taste you prefer, dump all other ingredients (except potatoes) into that pot.
*Tip: Add the potatoes at the very end because if the mixture is too hot, it melts the potatoes and leaves a weird, starchy consistency to your cream stew.

*Note that the vegetables and chicken will have their own water content so if the cream roux is consistency is too thick for your liking, keep in mind that adding all other ingredients may water it down.  So you may not have to add more milk.

And you're done!  Great job!  Enjoy your cream stew over some hot rice.  ^^