Today I made my monthly “throw everything leftover in a pot” soup. Into the stockpot went comfrey, carrots, all sorts of celery, fenel, onion, leek, cabbage, ginger, garlic, tomato paste and for the meaty part some leftover grilled porkchops. All chopped to small pieces, fried and finally cooked in lots of water with leftover veggi-stock and tons of other spices I had to get rid of (caraway, chili, sweet paprika).
A hearty dish for a cold friday night. But while I whittled the veggis I was asking myself: can I make a “hunter’s pot” from this soup? Obviously it is a big pot of soup and I’m on my own, but if I eat 2 meals a day I can half the thing in 2-3 days. It will be chilled over night and boiled every time it comes out of the fridge.
Will this this start to ferment at some point? Can I just blend the rest, throw in some fresh vegs, meats and water? Make a stew with all sorts of meat? Ideas?
Some thoughts:
You could try it, but if you fuck it up it sounds like a great way to give yourself some nasty food poisoning. FYI: boiling kills most pathogens, but doesn’t always break down the compounds they produce – which can still make you sick.
If you live somewhere with hard water, you will get scale build up on the sides of your pot. If you boil just plain tap water in a pot and let it air dry repeatedly you will see this happen; with other stuff in the mix, the build up could get really nasty… I use vinegar to clean the pot I use for making tea when the scale builds up too much; it may be worth trying to add some vinegar, lemon juice, or other acidic ingredients periodically to try to stay on top of this?
Mixing some alcoholic beverages in occasionally may be worth trying – both for the anti-microbial effect and for flavor. e.g. I used to put red wine in beef stew when I still drank, and beer in gumbo.
If you do try it, take notes on what works, what doesn’t, etc.
Good input! I have to read up on that compound buildup. The idea of the hunter’s pot was to water it down once it’s 1/3, maybe that did the trick back in the day. These were some tough dudes…
For the water, I used filtered tap water, so should be ok on that.
The alcohol is a fantastic idea and it can pair well with the leftover cooked down to a stew with potatoes and meats. I have to think about that. Salt and maybe rosemary are anti-microbial as well.