If it’s the 14th, it’s time for another Daring Kitchen reveal!  The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Neither of us had had Brunswick Stew before this challenge.  Well, to be honest, we hadn’t even heard of it.  After reading up on our challenge, it seems to be a classic southern dish that is fairly popular in that region.  I guess its popularity just hasn’t migrated this far north of the Mason Dixon.  Or, maybe we’ve just been living under a rock all these years.

Apparently a classic protein in Brunswick Stew is squirrel.  While we do have a ton of the running around our neighborhood, we just can’t seem to find any at the grocery store!  I wonder why that is?  Rabbit is another common meat used, but while being more socially acceptable to eat, we also couldn’t find it at the store.  The last time I’ve eaten rabbit was back in Spain in a Mountain (non seafood) Paella.  The thought of another rabbit stew(ish) dish was enticing, but for now not an achievable option.  We ended up going with a more traditional, to us at least, pork roast.

I’m proud to say that the stew turned out great.  Despite our admitted indifference towards all things soup, we both loved it!  The pork was tender, the beans hearty and the broth had an acidity that I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy.  I’m not sure why I never expect to absolutely love vinegary or acidic foods.  I  like tomatoes and I love pulled pork, but I still never read vinegar in a recipe and think YUM!  Maybe I should.  The one revision to the recipe I’ll use the next time, and there will be a next time, I make this is to saute the onions rather than just tossing them into the liquid.  The enhanced sweetness of the caramelized onions would add a nice balance to the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.  Dana’s big suggestion is to thicken it up (even more) and eat it with rice.  You know, cause white rice makes everything better!

Thanks again to Wolf for the great challenge and for proving to us once again that we can love a soup!  As always, you can find the recipe on the Daring Kitchen site, HERE.