This recipe came from: http://littlespicejar.com/hearty-poblano-beef-stew/
*Pic 1 - From http://littlespicejar.com/hearty-poblano-beef-stew/
Variations from Recipe as Written: I made 1.5x the recipe. And, not really a "change," since the recipe said it could be omitted, but I did include the chipotle pepper in adobo sauce.
General Thoughts: As you may know from reading my previous posts, I am not crazy about roasting my own chiles, generally... I can do it well enough, and it is generally necessary to bring forth proper flavors, but it does add a significant amount of prep time to most recipes, particularly if I am preparing them in volume. For this recipe, I roasted five peppers, so it wasn't a tremendous amount, but overall it put this recipe into the "medium prep work" category; not super easy, but not an overwhelming amount of work either. A soup's flavor can, of course, make almost any amount of prep work worth it, so I was hoping this one delivered...
*Pics 2 & 3 - Pictures from when I made it
First, the good... It lived up to its name, as it was definitely hearty! It was filling and gave me that deep-down warm feeling that a good stew should. The meat was tender, the potatoes were perfectly done, and I didn't even mind the diced tomatoes (I often purée them). Finally, it is actually quite healthy... And, if you were to swap the Idaho potatoes for sweet potatoes (more on this later), it'd be even better for you.
But, unfortunately, there were some glaring issues with this one, as well, which kept it from being a great recipe, in my opinion. Most importantly, I felt like this one suffered from the plight of many stews: it was just plain bland. It didn't have enough salt, the beef lacked the proper savor, it didn't have enough varied spices (really, just cumin and oregano, but neither in sufficient quantity to be very strong), and it lacked enough spiciness (even with the chipotle in adobo) and "bite" in the broth to make it interesting for me.
I sometimes steer clear of stews and taco/tortilla soups, in general, because I feel like the different recipes (in each of those categories) taste too similar to each other (i.e., "if you've had one, you've had them all"). There are certainly exceptions (definitely see the post for my Sunday Soup #18: Okertoberfest Stew - https://soupersleuth.blogspot.com/2016/10/sunday-soup-18.html), but this stew was, unfortunately, not one of them. It was definitely a standard "stew" with meat and potatoes and nothing much remarkable... Bottom line: It was definitely okay, and I'd definitely eat it again if somebody served it to me, but it was just kinda "meh" overall.
Potential Improvements? My bowl was greatly helped when I added two things: more salt and some vinegar from a jar of pickled jalapeños. So, you could try adding things like that to the whole pot, anything to give it a more distinct flavor. I think I definitely would have marinated the meat for a couple of hours prior to cooking; something like my pre-pozole pork marinade (https://soupersleuth.blogspot.com/2016/05/sunday-soup-10-crock-pot-pork-pozole.html) would have worked well. Finally, although I am not a fan of sweet potatoes generally, I actually think that swapping out the Idaho potatoes for sweet potatoes would have done quite a bit to give this stew a unique character and improve its flavor.
But, unfortunately, there were some glaring issues with this one, as well, which kept it from being a great recipe, in my opinion. Most importantly, I felt like this one suffered from the plight of many stews: it was just plain bland. It didn't have enough salt, the beef lacked the proper savor, it didn't have enough varied spices (really, just cumin and oregano, but neither in sufficient quantity to be very strong), and it lacked enough spiciness (even with the chipotle in adobo) and "bite" in the broth to make it interesting for me.
I sometimes steer clear of stews and taco/tortilla soups, in general, because I feel like the different recipes (in each of those categories) taste too similar to each other (i.e., "if you've had one, you've had them all"). There are certainly exceptions (definitely see the post for my Sunday Soup #18: Okertoberfest Stew - https://soupersleuth.blogspot.com/2016/10/sunday-soup-18.html), but this stew was, unfortunately, not one of them. It was definitely a standard "stew" with meat and potatoes and nothing much remarkable... Bottom line: It was definitely okay, and I'd definitely eat it again if somebody served it to me, but it was just kinda "meh" overall.
Potential Improvements? My bowl was greatly helped when I added two things: more salt and some vinegar from a jar of pickled jalapeños. So, you could try adding things like that to the whole pot, anything to give it a more distinct flavor. I think I definitely would have marinated the meat for a couple of hours prior to cooking; something like my pre-pozole pork marinade (https://soupersleuth.blogspot.com/2016/05/sunday-soup-10-crock-pot-pork-pozole.html) would have worked well. Finally, although I am not a fan of sweet potatoes generally, I actually think that swapping out the Idaho potatoes for sweet potatoes would have done quite a bit to give this stew a unique character and improve its flavor.
Polling the Fam: I made it clear above, but I wasn't super crazy about this one. Becky said she'd have preferred the tomatoes to be puréed, but she actually thought the beef was fine and that it had decent flavor overall, though she wasn't knocked off her feet by it. Hunter's reaction was similar to mine, and he simply shrugged and said it was "okay." Fox said he did not care for it really at all, although he could not explain why he didn't like it (hey, sometimes you just like what you like, ya know?).
Verdict: Not a fan. (2 stars)
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