How to cook vegetable stew

Vegetable stew is one of the most useful and easy to prepare dishes. In the summer it is made from seasonal vegetables, in the winter - with cabbage, potatoes, frozen vegetable mixture. Vegetable stew is always present in the vegetarian menu, many people make it in fasting. However, if desired, it can be made with meat, and then it will become more satisfying. So experienced housewives know well how to make vegetable stews from different types of vegetables, and have several recipes for this versatile dish in stock. At the same time, they continue to collect new recipes for vegetable stews, as there are a huge number of cooking options.

Cooking Features

At first glance, it may seem that cooking vegetable stew is quite simple: cut the vegetables, put them into the pan and stew. In fact, this process is more complicated and has several subtleties. If you don’t know them, the finished dish will have an unsightly look, although it will remain tasty.

All vegetables have their own structure, and therefore different times are needed to bring them to readiness. For this reason, it is not recommended to put all vegetables in a saucepan or cauldron at once. Indeed, in this case, some of them will be digested, while others, on the contrary, will remain half-baked. Observance of the order of laying the products is one of the main rules for preparing tasty vegetable stews.
If you fry the products before stewing, they will taste better, but the caloric content of the finished dish will increase. If you have decided to fry the products, then it is best to fry each of them separately and only then combine.
Beautiful vegetable stew is obtained if the pieces of vegetables in them have approximately the same shape and are approximately equal in size. At the same time, it is recommended to cut vegetables in a medium-sized manner, although it is not worth making small slices either.
Often eggplant is a part of vegetable stew. These vegetables contain a harmful substance that gives them bitterness, so they need preliminary preparation. It consists in soaking eggplants in salt water. To this end, 10 g of salt is dissolved in a liter of water. You can simply cut the eggplants in half, salt and rinse after a while - the effect will be the same: the salt will stretch the solanine and the eggplants will be tasty and safe.
If you make a stew with meat, then cook it first, as it takes much longer to bring the meat to the desired condition than to stew vegetables.
You can use spices, spices, fresh greens, tomato paste to add extra flavor and seductive flavor to vegetable stews. In cases where the composition of the dish includes fresh tomatoes, tomato paste is usually not added.

As already mentioned, there are many recipes for vegetable stews. You can make it not only in the pan, but also in the oven, the slow cooker. Therefore, the technology of cooking this dish can not remain unchanged, it depends on the chosen method and the specific recipe.

Classic Winter Vegetable Stew

Composition:

White cabbage - 0, 3 kg;
potatoes - 0, 75 kg;
string beans (you can use frozen) - 0, 3 kg;
carrots - 0, 3 kg;
onions - 150 g;
turnips - 0, 3 kg;
tomato puree - 50 ml;
butter - 50 g;
wheat flour - 20 g;
vegetable broth or water - 0.5 l;
carnation - 3 pcs .;
cinnamon - at the tip of a knife;
salt, black pepper powder - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash cabbage, remove top sluggish leaves. Nashinkuyte.
Peel the onion and cut it into small pieces.
Peel carrots and cut into cubes no larger than 1 cm.
Peel the turnips, cut them in the same pieces as the carrots.
Peel the potatoes and chop them with the knife too.
Boil water in a small saucepan, throw the beans and cabbage there, and boil them for 10 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan with a slotted spoon or fold them into a colander. Do not pour out the broth - if you do not have vegetable broth, you can use it in the next stages of cooking.
Fry the flour in a dry pan. When its color becomes caramel, thin stream pour vegetable broth into the pan, constantly beating it with a whisk, so that there are no lumps.
Add the tomato paste, stir and hold the sauce on the fire for about 5 minutes, stirring it constantly. Turn off the heat, remove the pan from the stove and pour the sauce into a bowl or other clean container.
Wash, dry, put butter on it. Put on the fire and melt the butter. Put chopped onion and fry it over medium heat until golden brown.
Put potatoes on the onion and fry it for 2-3 minutes.
Put the turnip and onion in the pan, pour in a little sauce. Stew vegetables on low heat for 5 minutes. Add cabbage, beans, potatoes with onions. Salt, pepper, add cinnamon and cloves.
Pour the remaining sauce, stir and cook for another 15-20 minutes, until all the vegetables are soft enough.
Remove the heat to low and leave the stew in a saucepan under the lid for 10 minutes. It is better if the pot is thick-bottomed. Even more suitable for cooking stew cauldron.

Arrange the cooked stew in plates and serve to the table as a main dish or side dish. Stew cooked with a side dish goes well with any meat dishes, as well as sausages. For example, sausages are in good harmony with vegetable stew prepared according to the above recipe.

Classic Summer Vegetable Stew

Composition:

eggplants - 0.5 kg;
zucchini - 0.5 kg;
sweet pepper - 0, 5 kg;
potatoes - 0.5 kg;
carrots - 150 g;
onions - 150 g;
garlic - 3 cloves;
tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
fresh greens - 100 g;
vegetable oil - 80 ml;
salt, pepper - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Eggplants, peel and cut into small cubes. Dip them for 20 minutes in cool salted water, then rinse in running water and pat dry with paper napkins.
Peel zucchini, cut lengthwise, remove seeds with a spoon. If you have young zucchini small, they just need to wash and blot with a kitchen towel.
Cut the zucchini into cubes of approximately the same size as eggplants.
Wash Bulgarian pepper, cut the stem, remove the seeds. Cut into small squares.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into pieces of the same shape and size as other vegetables.
Free the onions from the husk and cut into small pieces.
Peel and chop the carrots on a coarse grater.
Finely chop the garlic.
Cut the tomatoes into cubes. It would be even better if you boiled water and cleaned them before this, although it is not necessary to do this.
Finely chop the greens with a knife.
In a thick-bottomed saucepan or in a cauldron, heat the vegetable oil, put the onions and carrots in it. Fry them until the onions are golden in color.
Add sweet pepper, fry onions and carrots with it for 3-4 minutes.
Add zucchini and eggplants. Fry them for 5 minutes.
Add potatoes to vegetables and fry them with him for another 5 minutes.
Add tomatoes and garlic to the dish, salt and pepper.
Simmer the vegetable stew on low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. You can add water only if the liquid released from the vegetables is not enough and they will start to burn.
Sprinkle greens in a stew, stir. Turn off the heat and let the stew brew for 10 minutes.

It is good to cook such a stew in summer, when fresh zucchini, eggplants and tomatoes are quite inexpensive or, even better, grow in beds on your backyard.

Vegetable stew in French (ratatouille)

Composition:

zucchini - 0, 4 kg;
eggplants - 0, 4 kg;
tomatoes - 0, 4 kg;
olive oil - 20 ml;
Provencal herbs, salt, pepper - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash vegetables and cut into slices no more than half a centimeter thick.
Eggplants should be dipped in salted water for 20 minutes, then rinsed and dried.
Grease a heat-resistant form with olive oil. It will be better if you choose a round shape.
Spiral the vegetables. They need to alternate in a strict order and spread overlapped, so that they all fit.
Sprinkle the vegetables with the remaining oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, dried or fresh herbs.
Send the form to the oven and turn it on. Bake vegetables at 200 degrees for 45 minutes.

Serving ratatouille to the table can be in the form or laid out on plates. If desired, you can sprinkle grated cheese 10 minutes before being ready, then it will be even more tasty.

Vegetable stew with minced meat in Bulgarian

Composition:

potatoes - 1 kg;
Bulgarian pepper - 0, 5 kg;
minced pork and beef - 0.5 kg;
tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
water - 0, 25 l;
vegetable oil - 50 ml;
salt, pepper, greens - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Peel and dice the potatoes.
Peppers wash, cut the stalk and remove the seeds. Pulp cut into not too small cubes. Stew will look beautiful if you take one red pepper, one - a different color.
Cut the tomatoes into cubes.
Heat the butter in a deep frying pan and fry the minced meat in it for 10 minutes.
Add pepper and fry the minced meat with it for another 5 minutes.
Enter potatoes and tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste, cover with water.
Stew vegetables with minced meat on low heat for about 30 minutes.
Pour greens, finely chopped with a knife, stir, continue cooking for another 5 minutes.

Vegetable stew cooked according to this recipe resembles lecho somewhat, only with potatoes and minced meat.

Spanish Vegetable Stew

Composition:

zucchini - 0.5 kg;
sweet pepper - 0, 5 kg;
tomatoes - 1 kg;
onions - 100 g;
vegetable oil - as needed;
sugar - 5 g;
salt, pepper, greens - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Pour boiling water over tomatoes, peel. Crush or blend through a sieve.
Add finely chopped greens, salt, sugar and pepper to the tomato puree, mix well.
Wash squash, dry, cut into slices.
Pepper wash. After removing the stem and seeds, cut each vegetable in half lengthwise. Cut into half rings.
Onions, peeled from the husk, also cut the halves of the rings.
In one pan, fry the onion and pepper in butter, fry the zucchini on the other.
Fold the roasted vegetables in one pan, cover with tomato sauce and simmer for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle stew with chopped greens before serving. Try to get a little more sauce on the plate - it is very tasty.

Vegetable stew is prepared in almost all countries of the world, so there are a huge number of recipes for this dish, and each has its own trait, which makes the dish unique.