Easy Vegetable Stew with Protein

Hi there and welcome to my kitchen. Today I have for you a vegetable stew with two options for protein. One vegetarian and the other chicken. The vegetarian option is actually paneer which is a fresh cheese made from cheese curds. This type of cheese doesn't melt. It acts more like tofu. So we're going to saute it in butter or ghee, giving it a golden brown color and rich umami flavor before adding it to the soup. If you're using chicken it gets prepared in exactly the same way. You fry the chicken breast in butter and seasoning and then slice it and add it to the stew. But this method of preparing the protein separately adds a lot of flavor to what is otherwise a very simple dish. I love to serve this stew in a bowl with rice or another whole grain. Since the stew is thick rather than thin like a regular soup, it holds up in a bowl nicely and gives you a quick, complete and very satisfying meal. If that sounds good to you, keep watching and I'll show you exactly how to make protein rich vegetable stew. So first we're going to prepare the onions and the garlic. So I'm going to do the onions first. This is such a beautiful onion. Actually I just chopped this off but you see how nice and firm and complete and hard and shiny the skin is? It's hard to find such a beautiful onion so I'm just appreciating that. Alright, so I've just rinsed this celery nicely under running water. And I like to start with the root ends. And depending on how big these stalks are, I'll just run the knife down the part that I want to make smaller. So in this case I think half is sufficient or you could even do in the bigger parts you can even run it a little bit even smaller than that. And this is how you can easily get fine pieces of celery. And then since they're long and harder to deal with, I'm actually going to just slice them in half so that I can work with this first section. I'm just holding it together tightly because I want a relatively fine chop on my celery. Always being clean in your working methods. Nice. Okay, and I'm going to show you a handy tool. This is a bench scrape and it's super helpful. I can either put all the celery in here to move it over to the soup pot later or transfer it into a bowl. Super, super helpful. I love this tool. Alright, so the first ingredients are ready to go. Okay, so the next thing we're going to prep is the squash. And this recipe calls for yellow summer squash or zucchini. So this is the yellow summer squash and this is zucchini. Alright, so they're both very similar. And the zucchini is a little bit more firm in its texture. It's, I would say, a little bit more bland. It's firmer, harder, definitely. This one is a little softer inside, which is nice because it breaks down beautifully. But the skins are harder. So to deal with the skins, we're actually going to peel them with a vegetable peeler. And if you're using zucchini, you don't need to peel anything because the skins are really thin. Okay, so either one. I recommend the yellow squash if you can find it. And most people aren't as familiar. I'm going to show you what they look like inside as well so you can see the differences. So the first thing I'm going to do is take off the ends. And then we'll peel it. And this just takes off the rougher part of the skin. It's quite fibrous. You can eat it, but it's going to take longer to cook. And it's just going to give a rougher texture overall. So it's up to you, but if you're sensitive at all in your digestion, you probably want to peel it. And I'm not being super careful because I don't mind a little bit of skin in there. Alright, let's get these in the compost. Okay, so showing you how this looks like inside now. I'm going to slice this guy in half. And I'm also going to slice this guy in half. Okay, so let's compare the insides. So hopefully you can see this. The yellow squash sometimes has some seeds. And as I said, it's a little softer in there. This guy has no seeds. I'm not sure of the history of the development of this vegetable, but it's almost guaranteed to have no seeds. While this guy sometimes can have seeds. If you see the seeds being too large, you can remove them. But generally, they're quite small and just fine to use. We're going to chop this squash into matchsticks, which is what the recipe calls for. And I'm doing that just for fun, really. You can chop it however you like. But I like to be mindful about how I chop vegetables. I'm going to put them over here, mindfully. Alright, here we go. So I'm looking for about... What is the size? Half inch. So I'm going to slice into planks first. In the width that I want these guys to be. So about like that. You can see compared to my fingers. It's about a finger width. Then, stack them up. And slice into sticks. So this is what... So you do have to think about this a little bit. There we go. So basically, longish sticks. Longish sticks. So we're looking for three to four cups. Okay, so I'm actually going to measure this using my measuring cup. So that's two. And it looks like four. Okay. And then we'll set this aside. Awesome. So carrots are the last step here. And I actually use this little vegetable peeler to wash the skins under running water to remove the dirt. I don't like peeling carrot skins. It just feels like too much of the nutrition is getting wasted. And now we're just going to chop them in a size that you would like to have in the soup. So think about how big of a piece will fit in a spoon. Like a soup spoon. So these little parts can be whole. And I like my carrot chunks to be a little larger. So I actually chop them just a little larger. There we go. So the carrots are done. We'll set those in a bowl. There we go. Okay, so we set those in a bowl. And now we have everything we need ready to go for the soup. All of our vegetables. We've got the onions and garlic. The celery. The squash cut into matchsticks. And the carrots. Alright, so the next step is to actually cook the soup. So the next thing you want to do is get your water or stock ready and have it ready by the stove. So we keep it there. And then you want your soup pot. So I like using this pot right here. And it's nice to have a pot with a lid. So that's ready to go. The water's ready to go. And we're ready to start cooking this soup. To start the stew cooking, we'll use butter or ghee. This is actually ghee, which is a form of clarified butter that is highly recommended in Ayurveda. We're going to use a tablespoon. And it's actually due to the preparation of the ghee that it contains very subtle molecules. And a little bit of heat that supports digestion and assists in the assimilation of nutrients from food. And if you want to learn more about ghee and cooking with ghee, I'll put a link in the description below. Now if you don't have ghee today, you can just use butter or olive oil. And once that ghee is melted, we're going to sizzle in some turmeric powder. So I've got half a teaspoon of turmeric powder. And I just love watching that turmeric powder sizzle in. Oh, and the aroma. So cooked turmeric is a lot different than raw. So you always want to make sure to cook your turmeric just by sizzling it. 20-30 seconds is all it takes. And you can see this sizzling a little bit. So that's how you know that the fat is at the right temperature to activate the spices. And next we're just going to go ahead and add in the onions and garlic. As well as the celery. And a pinch of salt. And just give that a stir. So I love how the turmeric turns the onion a little bit yellowy. It's just pretty. And the salt helps to draw moisture out of the vegetables. And it just helps them to soften up a little bit faster. It starts some steaming there in the pot with the juices of the vegetables themselves. So we're just going to keep cooking this on a medium heat. I'm actually going to turn it down a little bit now. Cooking it on a medium heat until we notice some browning. Even light browning throughout. Alright, so this has been cooking about, I'd say about 8 minutes. And hopefully you can see that there is some caramelization that has started to happen here on the bottom. And the onions are actually lightly browned. And so at this stage we can add in the squash. The carrots. And the water or stock that we prepared earlier. Alright, and we want to give that a stir. So once you add the liquid, it's going to take off any sticking that might have been happening on the bottom of the pot. And just by giving it a stir, we're making sure that that happens. Also combining all the spices with the water. Nice. So we're also going to add in a quarter teaspoon of salt so that we can season all those vegetables as they cook. Alright. It doesn't look like much right now, but let's see after it simmers for about 25 minutes. So we're going to bring this up to a boil, then we're going to reduce the temperature to a simmer. We're going to cover it partially and cook for 25 minutes. Alright, so we've come to a boil now. Giving that a stir. And we're going to turn it down. And partially cover. And let it simmer. While the soup is simmering, you'll want to cook the chicken breast or paneer. You can either cook the chicken breast whole and then slice it into pieces, or you can slice it into pieces raw and then cook it. The choice is up to you. As for the paneer, it's a lot easier to work with. So let me introduce you here. I mentioned in the intro that paneer is made from cheese curds, and the cheese curds are pressed into a block. And I like this brand here, Haldiram's. And I have 12.6 ounces in this package here. And I'm going to cut it open. So typically you will get this in the refrigerated section of an Indian store, or some natural food stores will also carry it. And I mentioned it was 12 ounces, so we're going to need a third of this. So the recipe calls for four ounces of paneer. And so what I'm going to do is just portion this roughly. It's not, you know, you don't need to be completely exact. And these remaining portions I'm going to put in plastic wrap, and then I'm going to keep them actually in the freezer. Because paneer does not last long in the refrigerator, only about two to three days before it will start to go off. And that's because this is a very fresh cheese, there's no preservatives in it. So you want to make sure that once you open a package, you use it up within two to three days. So this is the paneer we're going to use for this recipe. And I'm going to slice it, I think what I'm going to do is slice it into three. And look how nice it is to work with. It's quite firm, but it's got some softness to it at the same time. And then after that, I think I'll slice it into half lengths, and then into pieces like this. So paneer is quite rich. It's made from, you know, concentrated milk fat. It's a very healthy fat, it's very easy to digest, but you don't need too much in a portion to satisfy. So this is going to be five, I guess about five portions, so five portions in the soup. Now if you feel like you want to have more, by all means include more. But we'll start with this for today. We're going to use that ghee or butter again. Half a tablespoon this time. And the thing I love about working with ghee is that you can tell when it melts that your pan is hot enough. And speaking of pan, I am using a small, fairly non-stick skillet. This is a ceramic skillet, and it has lost its... it has lost its luster, let's just say. These guys are good. This is a green pan, but it does not last that long in terms of the non-stick. But it'll do. So paneer has some watery liquid in it, and so when you add it to the fat, it's going to actually start releasing the liquid first. We're going to season this with some salt and black pepper. And I also recommend a little turmeric, if you like. Let me get that. So I love using the turmeric because I enjoy the color. It doesn't really change the flavor very much, but the color is beautiful. So when cooking paneer, as I mentioned, the liquid comes out first. And so it's actually going to take a couple minutes before the paneer starts to brown, because that moisture needs to evaporate off first, before the browning starts. So this is the vegetarian protein. Paneer is high in healthy fats. It's also very high in protein. Isn't that beautiful? This is starting to brown very lightly, and you want to watch closely when this starts to happen, because it happens fast. And the paneer will burn, and you do not want it to burn. Now, same thing, if you're cooking chicken, you're going to be sautéing it until it's lightly browned. If it's a whole chicken breast, you'll know it's finished when there's no pink left in the center. With the paneer, you know it's finished when you have even browning. And those spices are so pretty. It's going to be hard for you not to nibble on this, I'm sure. Okay, so the browning is showing up beautifully now on the paneer. And I'm just using a medium-low flame here, so you want to do this gently. And that is just beautiful. I'll show that to you. So I also looked up the details for the nutritional information in here. And it's actually 90 calories per ounce. It is 7 grams of fat and 5 grams of protein. So that's the breakdown. I have 4 ounces here. So it would be a little bit less than that per serving if you have 5 servings of soup. So it's been 25 minutes, and I believe the soup is ready. Sorry, I'm calling it a soup. It's actually a stew. You can see how nice and thick it is. Thick with vegetables. Okay, and so you just want to test, make sure that the vegetables are soft. If you're not sure, you can give it a taste. I've already tasted it, so I know. We're going to add in the prepared paneer or chicken that you sautéed separately with all that wonderful flavor in the protein. I'm going to add that into the soup, adding in all that extra flavor. And we want to make sure to get these bits here. So what I'm going to do is lift up some of the soup liquid. Move that around. Get off all the yummy bits here. There we go. The next step is to add the fresh parsley. And some fresh lime. Give that a good stir. You see the simplicity of the spices that we're adding? We've used a little bit of black pepper, a little bit of turmeric, some parsley, a culinary herb, and lime juice. Now, let's give it a taste. It looks so pretty. I want to taste the broth with the squash. And you're tasting for the salt, and you're tasting for the lemon. You want to see if there's enough. Mmm. Interesting. I can taste the lime. It's very, very mild. I can taste the salt very mildly, too. I'm going to add a little bit more salt and a little bit more lime. These are really your levers. Salt and lime are your levers of flavor here. Another lever that you have to enhance the flavor is a little bit of cayenne pepper, red chili, or a fresh garlic clove. Any of those items are going to pop up the flavor even further if you like things spicy. Okay, let's give it another taste. Yes. Mmm. So now I can taste the lime a little bit more. I can taste the salt a little bit more. I think just a little bit more salt in here is just going to be perfect. So I love to serve this dish in a bowl with a grain. And that's why we have here a stew, which is nice and thick. And that allows it to work well in the bowl. So I've cooked some basmati rice. And I'm just going to put the rice on one side of the bowl. So I like to pile it over on one side. And that way I can put the stew onto the other side. And that bit of juice is just wonderful with the stew. And of course it goes a little bit underneath the grain. You can use any kind of grain that you like. And I'm going to put a little extra parsley in there. I'm going to put a little bit of extra ghee maybe here on the rice. And then I can stir it in and enjoy the soup that way. And a little bit of extra black pepper. Just to make it super pretty and bright. Isn't that nice? This is a really nice meal just like that. And if you wanted to get more protein in there you could add maybe some cashews or some almonds. Some extra nuts. Or if you are having this with chicken you could also include some feta cheese or another kind of cheese since you're not using the cheese. So there it is. You know what else I'm going to do is sprinkle a little bit of extra salt. I like to do this when I'm just, you know it's just like a tiny bit. But that finishing salt on top, it brings out the salt flavor differently from the salt that's already in the dish. Alright, so should we give this a taste? Alright, I'm excited to give this a try. I've got some carrot, some squash, some of the paneer. Oh my gosh, it's hard to get everything on one spoon. This is a big spoon too. And it's hot. So the richness of the paneer is coming through. There was that slightly chewy texture but oh so satisfying. And the cooked vegetables, you can just feel them nurturing from within. And the sauce, it's so good. It's just as in the stew sauce together with the rice. It's just the perfect combination. It's not too much liquid but it's enough liquid to keep it nice and hot, right, in the cold weather. And really nurturing you from within. After taking this bite, I feel like I want to add some fresh lime juice. So make sure you do that when you're tasting. If something seems to be missing or you could enhance the dish a little bit more, add it. So the fresh lime juice is actually providing digestive strength to the sweetness here in the dish. There's a lot of sweetness here. The carrots are sweet. The paneer is sweet. The squash is mildly sweet. The rice is sweet. And you might not notice that as sweet but really it is. It's all sweet. So adding some extra lime makes it less sweet. And for me that's more pleasing. Now you might love the sweetness. That's totally fine. That's the great thing about this is that you can customize it. So I'd like to suggest that if you like, you can substitute some or all of the squash for something else. Like maybe sweet potato or yam. Or maybe you want to use a winter squash like butternut. These days you can buy chopped up butternut squash at the grocery store. Or you could add root vegetables like daikon radish. That's a good winter vegetable. Or turnip. So get a little bit of the bitter taste in there. Another thing you can do is add leafy greens. Like kale, collards, Swiss chard or even spinach. So again, getting some of that bitter taste in there is going to actually enhance the overall flavor. So for now we do have bitter in the turmeric to balance out the sweet. But you might enjoy this with some leafy greens. And it's so easy to just add in or switch up those vegetables. So when you add the squash and the carrots, just add the other vegetables instead. Or maybe add more variety of vegetables. The customization in here is really up to you. It's extremely versatile. So I hope you enjoy this and I hope you enjoy this presentation as well. This gives you a quick, simple, healthy meal. Complete protein, vegetarian or chicken. And something to just make you smile. So thanks for watching and bye for now.