The recipe starts with a good stock of stew meat as always. It could be 2 lbs. of bear meat, elk or vinison, but for tame purposes we will use beef. The meat should be cut into 1 inch cubes.

 

Next a 1/4 cup of flour to help thicken it up a bit. Make sure there are no weavles or pesky bugs roaming around in it.

 

Then a 1/2 teaspoon of salt staight from Lick Creek. Table salt will do if that's all you got.

 

A 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper. If you don't have black, red pepper will work, it just has more bite.

 

1 1/2 cups of beef broth or other meat broth. Just don't use yard bird broth or turkey.

 

1 teaspoon of imported Kings Elixir or better known as Worcestershire sauce.

 

1 clove of South Texas garlic

 

1 bay leaf from the herb garden

 

1 teaspoon of Polly's favorite spice paprika

 

4  rabbit sprouts or better known as carrots, sliced. I prefer about twenty of those baby rabbit sprouts, but sliced carrots will do.

 

3 Irish spuds or potatoes, diced

 

1 onion or six green onions, chopped

 

1 stalk of celery, sliced. Now this here celery is optional, I ain't much on it, but Ole Jim Bowie liked it and used his own pig sticker to do the slicing, so I threw it in there.

 

Put your stew meat in iron pot or if you like use modern cooking items. You can cook in a crockpot or a regulat old pot on the stove. I prefer to cook over an open fire, the wood smoke adds to the overall flavor.

Mix your flour, salt and pepper together and then pour it over the meat; stir well, so you coat the meat with the flour mix. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to mix it all up real good.

 

Cover your pot and cook over a good bed of hot coals for four to six hours. Some might call it a medium fire, but keep in mind it takes a while to cook, so you can't leave the fire. You may have to chunk a few more sticks of wood on the fire before the stew is done. At the Alamo this was fine, Ole Santa Anna had us surrounded, so we weren't going anywhere. We had plenty of time for the stew to cook. The thing with stew, is to test taste often, when the meat is tender and the taters are soft, it's time to eat.