Brunswick Stew Recipe

October 7th 2006, well a nor’easter is crawling up the coast and bringing much needed rain but it has put a damper on making barbeque. For those of you not familiar with Boston Butts they are a thing of beauty. The cut is the top part of the shoulder off the front legs of a pig or hog. There are different explanations on how it got its name but I won’t get into that. Anyway Ken’s sister came down from the mountains up around Salem Va. this weekend. He was planning on smoking some butts and I was going to have him take pictures but this has been postponed. Well as much pork as we cook there’ll be pictures soon. Since I’m stuck indoors, I'm trying a new recipe called Brunswick Stew III that I got from http://about.com/. I haven’t strictly followed the recipe and never do. I put too much Smithfield ham and the stew is a little saltier than I care for. It’s been on the stove for a while and I just dropped in the red pepper flakes. The pepper flakes added the right touch of heat and flavor. The stew is not thick enough for my taste. I’ll have to find a way to thicken it up. Maybe potato flakes, less stock, more taters. I went and added another stick of butter and a can of cream corn. The sweetness plays nicely against pepper flakes. I did go ahead and add about two cups of potato flakes to tighten up the broth. With the extra stick of butter the stock still has a very velvety feel. We were planning to have the stew with hard rolls but the store was out so we will have to settle for a crusty baguette.