>> male announcer: Funding for Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking was provided by: >> Prudhomme: I'm in a stewing day.

I'm gonna stew everything, so don't come too close.

I'm Chef Paul Prudhomme, Always Cooking, yeah, and we got Miami, South Miami Cuban stew.

We got shrimp-and-potato stew, and the greens, ahh, they're wonderful.

[lively Cajun music] ♪ ♪ South Miami Cuban stew, boy, this show's going to be stewing and stewing and stewing.

It's one of the best things there is in cooking if you have time to do it, because the least expensive ingredients, especially in meats, just--I mean, they just bring out so much flavor when you cook them a long time, and this is what this is about.

Stewing is about cooking a long time, and so we're gonna start out by doing some of the things that I love to do that makes food better, and it fits perfectly with stewing.

I got some--I got some sausage, and these sausages are Cuban sausages.

I got the pan going, so it's--I'm gonna turn it up, but it's already warm, so we're going to start cooking this.

Now, you brown these off.

Now, with the Cuban sausage, I probably wouldn't put any seasoning directly on them, but I got some ham here, and I want to put a little bit of seasoning on the ham.

And I definitely gonna put seasoning on the meat.

So when I take this and put it in with the sausages-- see, when you start with a hot pan, I mean, it just makes things real quick, quick, quick to get going, and if you got to brown stuff, and if you got a long-term cooking thing happening, you know, it's really great to do that.

I mean, it really is.

We're gonna take and put some seasoning on the meat while that's browning, and I think this is also about as important as you can get, and especially when you're using dull meat.

And what I mean by dull meat, I always think of pork as being fairly dull, so... Look how quick this brown when you preheat the skillet and you put a little bit of herbs and spices with it.

This is workin', all right.

We're nna put it in here, and then we're gonna take this pan, and we're gonna start browning the beef.

Now, the beef will take a little longer because--and it's a really simple reason-- because this is tough beef, and it's what would be considered cheap, you know, like stew meat or, you know, and there's not a lot of fat in it.

It's one of the reasons that it's not expensive is because it's tough and it don't have a lot of fat.

I want to make sure this is brown.

I'm a fanatic about it because I know that when this goes into all the moisture that it's going to take to make a stew that the browning is gonna be one of the key things.

You can see I got just about every one, and I'm gonna turn the ones over that are not brown.

I'm just fanatic about browning, and so we've got that.

We're gonna add it to the sausage and the ham, and I'll tell you, the smell in here is great.

Look at all the stuff that's in this, you know, in this pan, and all that's flavor, I mean, real flavor.

I prebrowned the onions because I know if you watch this show at all, you know that I love to brown onions.

Not gonna put them all in because I'm going to stage them.

I'm gonna put the bell peppers in, and, again--and I'm going to put all the celery in, because we don't have a lot of celery.

And, again, one of the keys to this is putting a little oil on it, but don't--I mean, even if you forget to put the oil on in the bowl, you can put it, a small amount, right on the vegetables or whatever you want to heat, and it just makes it hotter, and look at that.

There's no oil floating around in my pan, so I won't be getting all those sort of off tastes from oil being overheated.

The next step is, I'm going to add the tomatoes.

We getting going here.

Gonna add the tomato sauce.

Gonna add the garlic.

Love garlic.

Gonna add herbs and spices to it.

Got a little bit left, so gonna get that.

This'll take a couple of minutes, because you want to do the same thing we did earlier, but it just won't be as fast because of the liquid in it.

We want to get the tomatoes into a sweet state, and when you long-term cooking or you slow cooking or you stewing, it's very important to get the tomatoes or whatever you're cooking at that dry state so it really gives you a lot of flavor.

esome, and I want to just give it a little taste.

Maybe I can describe it to you.

I mean, it's so important to get the seasoning cooked, and if you're going to do a stew, I mean, you want the tomato--you don't want the tomatoes to have sort of that, you know, like astringent tomato flavor to it or taste in your mouth.

And when you--oh.

When you do this to it, all that goes away.

We got the potatoes we want to put in.

And we took the potatoes and blanched them, or we took them and put a little bit of heat on 'em in water, and so they gonna mix in really well, so we gonna mix that in.

And we workin' on a stew.

We workin' on a stew.

And it's a Cuban stew, so it's South Miami, so you know it's gonna be good.

We're gonna put the red bell peppers in for a little bit color, the rest of the ingredients that I browned, and then we're gonna finish this seasoning, and then the last thing we got to do for this moment is put some stock in it.

Now, anytime you're stewing and anybody that stewed know that it takes a while to do.

It takes--matter of fact, it takes sometimes hours to do, which is fine, because you can cover this, and you can let it cook very slow till everything is tender.

We got a couple more stages to go.

I want to give it a little taste, even though it's hot.

It's working, it really is.

I mean, we're starting to get to the tender stage of the beef, and so we're gonna put the rest of the onions in.

Ooh, it tastes good.

Rest of the bell peppers in.

I'm gonna shut this down, and then we gonna just let it simmer.

What I've got left to add: I've got some sherry to add.

I've got some peas to add and some stock, and so we gonna let it simmer just a little bit more and come back, add everything else in, and then we'll be done.

Oh, it's wonderful.

The smell is great.

I mean, it's ready for the final steps, and we're gonna put the peas in, and the peas gonna give it some nice color.

We're gonna add the sherry in, and then we're gonna just get those things get a little warm, and look what I got next to me.

This is ready to eat, and that's South Miami Cuban stew, yes.

Shrimp-and-potato stew with fresh fennel, good stuff.

I don't know if you know about fennel or you, you know.

I mean, when fresh fennel is absolutely wonderful, and there's so many ways to use it, and there's so many parts of it that really taste different.

And we'll talk about that in a second or two, and I got to remember to come back to it.

But this a delicious seafood soup, and the stew is just one of those things that, you know, that just--I love long-term cooking, and this has shrimp in it, so you can't do the shrimp until right at the end, so always remember that.

Long-term cooking, you don't put seafood until--especially when it's fresh seafood, you don't put it in till the end.

So we got to make-- we got to brown some flour.

Now, browning flour is, I think, very simple, but I've been doing it--[laughs] Oh, Lordy, I hate to think about how long I've been doing it.

I've been doing it for about 50 years, because it was one of the things that I learned from my mother very early on is to do the browning of things, and so I've got a skillet.

Now, you could use oil.

I don't want to use oil on this one.

I want it to be dry.

We're gonna put the flour in, and then we're gonna start-- start the process of browning the flour and cooking the flour, and in the beginning, you think this is never gonna happen.

You know, I mean, you'll think, "Whoa, boy, this take a long time."

But, you see, because I preheated the pan and because I got a good fire on it, you see a little bit of smoke comin', and the smoke stopped when I stirred, so I'm gonna put the fire up a little bit, and so it'll start.

I want that little puff of sort of white smoke come out, and, you know, it's so wonderful to see the changes, but to smell the changes is just dynamite.

I mean, it's just flour that's not been roasted or not been the color change, and it--you put it in your mouth, and it's sort of like just pasty, but the more heat you add to it and the more you change the color, I mean, the more flavor comes out, and, I mean, we're getting close to this.

Look at this.

Oh, isn't this wonderful?

I mean, just look at those colors go, you know?

Now, I want to put a little bit of chilies in here.

I got some Anaheim chilies that I'm gonna put in.

But I don't want to cook 'em too much, and they'll accelerate the heat in the flour because chilies do that because they got oil in them, and so--look at that.

Oh, we're almost there.

I'm gonna add the-- And one of the things you got to realize also is that after you take it off the fire, it's gonna keep turning color, so we put the chili in, and the flour's hot enough that it's gonna cook-- look at the color change-- it's gonna cook the chili, and so it's gonna have a great taste to it.

I want to cool it down, so I got a plate here to put it in, and I'm gonna spread it.

I'm gonna spread it, and so I don't want it to cook a whole lot anymore, even though--look at the one that we did earlier and look at the colors.

I mean, they're almost exactly the same.

This one's a little bit darker, but that little bit of darker is gonna continue to cook, and it's gonna be there when it's time to use it.

Now, the next step is, I'm gonna put the fire up higher, and I'm going to start the onions and bell pepper and celery, and I want to put a little touch of oil in the onions just to start.

And for those of you who've not seen me do this before, the reason I do that is that I don't like to see the oil in the bottom of the pan and have the oil just sort of-- on where there's no vegetables.

The oil would burn, and so-- I'll show you what I'm talking about.

See, if you put it in now, there's no oil here.

There's no oil here.

There's no oil there.

It's all on the onions, and that's so much better than having oil get preheated or get overheated on the side of the vegetables.

And I've got bell pepper I'm gonna put in, and I'm going to sprinkle them on, and I'm going to mix them up with the onion so I get a little bit of oil in them.

I got some celery.

Oh, we're gonna put those in.

Now, the process, I'm turning the fire all the way up, and I'm going to just toss these together and start cooking them.

Now, to me, this is the part that really can build you a lot of flavor is to do the browning and do--you can choose the colors.

This one, because I'm using flour, I don't need a whole lot of color because it's sort of the same flavor but not.

I mean, brown flour has a taste that's roasted, and it has a color taste and stuff, and so does the onions and the bell pepper.

But we doing this in a long-term cooking, and so I'm not gonna worry about that.

And then the next thing I'm gonna do is add herbs and spices to it.

One of the things I love to use a lot of, and you'll see the colors of them there.

I love to use chilies.

Black pepper's great, but when you put a chili in-- and in the seasoning, we got a New Mexico chili, so we using two different kinds.

And so it's--it's a great way to build flavors.

And so I want to go back to the fennel.

And it has great smell to it.

It's almost like a tobacco smell, but it's not.

It's sweet.

You know, it just really-- and most of the time, people will use this as a garnish, you know, but I think the bulb has a lot more flavor and a lot more strength to the flavor, and it just--especially when you making the sauce, putting the bulb on is just really great.

I don't want to burn this.

Let me take it out of there.

The next step is, I got to put potatoes in, so we gonna do that.

And you can see with the herbs and spices on the onions and bell pepper and celery, they've started to change color pretty dramatically, and I got a hot fire going, but it's still the fact that the herbs and spices really apply heat, or herbs and spices have a way of making things--using the fire to get it hotter.

So we're putting a little bit of seasoning.

I'm gonna add the flour to it, and adding the flour to it tells me that I'm just about done, and so this is the flour that I cooked.

And I want the flour to get mixed up in it, and so if I see that it's not really mixing up, I'm going to add a little moisture to it, and so I'm gonna do that right now.

I'm going to add a little bit of stock to it.

If you use water when you're cooking, it's okay, you know, but water takes away.

It's gonna take away the flavors.

It's gonna lower the flavors.

And I know if you don't have time to do--if you don't have time to do stocks, I understand, but they're so simple to do, because all you have to do is take your leftover anythings.

I mean, the family had chicken, or, you know, I mean, you can go to the market and buy chicken pieces that are cheap, or, you know, you can use the leaves of your--matter of fact, you can use some of the fennel, and you can use the part of the fennel you didn't use.

You can use the peel of onion.

You can use the peel of garlic.

All those things work.

I'm gonna add the fennel to it now, and I'll tell you, we're-- the smell just changed really quickly when I added the fennel.

I mean, it just really has a good smell to it, and now my-- I mean, all the browning is done.

I mean, you can see the colors there.

You can see they're really great.

We're gonna add this to it.

Now, I still haven't added the shrimp, and the reason I haven't added the shrimp is because the shrimp cooks very, very quickly.

You know, I can't think of anything else that I would want to do except add the shrimp to it and let it cook.

Now, this is gonna cook a long time, and so we need to get some of the moisture out of it.

We're going to add the ginger to it.

Adding the ginger towards the end is gonna give you a good-- because it's not a whole lot of ginger, so it's gonna give you a good sting of a ginger taste, and it's gonna go well with the fennel.

And we're gonna let that cook a minute.

All right, we're back.

Look at this.

Oh, man, the texture of it's absolutely--I love this color.

I mean, I know it's gonna taste good, and I know it's hot, so I'm gonna put the shrimp in while I'm getting it cooled down, and that's them.

It's actually the last step, and for those of you who are not accustomed to fresh shrimp or don't cook seafood very often, seafood, again-- and I said that earlier, but I'm gonna repeat it right here.

It cooks very, very fast, and so as soon as I bring this to a boil-- I got to taste it.

Oh.

I mean, the fennel and the ginger and the--oh.

It's done.

And you don't want to keep cooking it, because the shrimp will keep--and I'm shutting the fire off.

The shrimp will keep putting juice out and getting drier and curled tighter, and it just--you know, you're just wasting the moisture on the inside, but we've got some already done, complete, and just kind of cooled down, so I'm gonna pull it over here and slide this over and just have a good old bite of it.

Would y'all like to have a bite?

Look how beautiful this shrimp is.

I mean, it's just a wonderful stew.

I'm gonna take a really big bite, and so I can't do it on the air, but I'll be thinking about you.

I love stews, and when they got a lot of greens in them, no matter what kind of greens you put in them, oh, they're good.

Got to have herbs and spices too, but the greens are great.

[chuckles] You know, I've been eating greens since I was a little kid.

It was one of the things that the family did a lot of, because it was easy to grow and they have a lot of vitamins.

I mean, everybody knew that too.

They got a lot of good stuff in them.

And, you know, like, "Have you eaten your greens yet?"

was one of the things that we would hear a lot.

So we've got the dish going, and we boiling the pork, and this is ground-up salt pork.

And you got to boil it to get the salt out.

And on the seasoning blend that you use, you got to be concerned about how much salt's in the seasoning blend.

But we ground the pork, and let me see if I can show you.

See how it's in small pieces?

And then we've got the boil going, and this is probably just about ready.

And so I'm going to start another part of the dish, and I'm going to-- this is grits, okay?

So we got grits in the dish, and so I'm going to shut the fire off on the salt pork, and I'm going to drain it and just put this right through here.

See how it's really small, you know?

And just drain it.

If there's any stick to the pot, just remove it like this.

All right.

So now that I've boiled it and I've got the salt flavors out of it, the next thing I want to do to it--I want to drain it a little bit, but the next thing I want to do to it is brown it, because those are wonderful things to do to them.

Now, we got a great array of herbs and spices in here, and so we're going to give you some of the ones that are probably unusual, and we'll start with that.

And I got--let me pay attention to my grits here.

And so we've got the-- we've got coriander, we've got dry mustard, we've got tumeric, we've got fenugreek, we've got anise, and we got ginger, and those are really-- I mean, really good combination of herbs and spices.

And the greens, you can have whatever you want.

I mean, it doesn't matter which greens you use, but, you know, the ones we picked today was the ones that I already talked about.

So we want to brown this.

Now, I need to brown also-- and you need to drain the oil, so--I mean, drain the water from it before you put it in.

And the greens have--the salt pork has enough oil in it that it should suffice, but if not, I'm going to add a little bit to it, and so I'm going to turn the grits up just a little bit to start them browning now that I can pay attention to them.

We've got the grits cooking now, and so--oh, the grits are now starting.

Look at that.

Oh, look, look, look, look.

Mmm, mmm.

Now I got to pay attention, because once they start, I mean, they go really fast.

And that's another thing about grits and most things that-- or most grains that you roast in a dry pan is that when you put it in a container, it should be a flat container like I've got here because they'll keep cooking and they'll keep browning.

And so the flavor-- oh, the flavor, wow.

It just hit me.

I mean, it just-- absolutely spectacular.

And I think I got enough color to 'em and enough flavor in 'em.

Now I'm going to pull the skillet forward, and I'm going to put that one on high and shut the other one off and then start adding ingredients to it.

I'm going to put the onions in.

And I'm going to start adding herbs and spices also, but I like to stage things, and I like--and you don't have to do that when you're cooking.

Whatever stage that I can build into a dish, like adding a small amount of the herbs and spices now, is just going to make a difference in the taste.

We're going to add the celery to it, and we're getting down to the bottom here, down to the bottom.

And so the simmering part is gonna come and be the longest thing that we have to do.

Next step is, I'm gonna put some butter in it.

I love butter.

More herbs and spices, and I'm gonna put it right on the butter to give it-- because when that butter melts-- and you see that color change of the smoke?

I mean, that's that butter melting, and when that butter melts, it just makes a--I mean, it's absolutely spectacular when it browns.

And you don't want it to brown too much, and so I've got the stock ready to go, so I'm going to add some stock.

[liquid sizzles] Now, one of the things that makes long-term cooking really great is to go a stage like this and let it evaporate.

In other words, let it get down to--let that stock get down to almost to a paste, till it really starts sticking.

And you don't have to do those kinds of things, but it's kind of the things that really makes a dish outstanding, that makes the emotion of the dish really wonderful.

And so we gonna add some more stock to it, and then the next step-- well, I might as well put it all at this step.

So we're going to put the greens in, and now we got to let it cook, and it's very important to let it cook, and after it cooks for a while and you see the greens are wilted and stuff, we're going to add the grits to it and finish the dish with some fromage or cheese.

You know, it's so amazing to me, and, you know, I know this, but you sort of forget it till you see it.

I mean, look how much moisture the greens have put out.

I mean, the moisture that they've put out is just wonderful.

So the steps we got to take now is, we gonna put the grits in and stir 'em up, and then once the grits are cooked--where it should probably take about four or five minutes.

Once the grits are cooked, and then we can put the cheese in, and we'll be done.

I think we're ready, but we got to taste it because we want to--and, see, the moisture's gone, so, I mean, I know the recipe's good, so I think that we're ready, but we want to make sure that the grits are cooked, and the only way to do that, unfortunately, is to taste it, you know.

Oh, the grits are ready.

I'm going to put the cheese in.

Well, I'm going to put a little bit of more herbs and spices in, and it won't take much.

I'm going to stir it right in, and that's gonna--when you put the cheese in, the flavors are going to come.

Actually, what I can do at this moment is cut the fire off-- and I will--because we're at a great stage.

I mean, look at that texture on this, oh.

And the cheese is gonna really-- gonna really make it great.

Add the mozzarella, stir it really good, and the only thing--[chuckles]-- only thing left to do is to get some up and start eating it, and I got some right here.

Green stew, it's wonderful.

Good cooking, good eating, good loving.

We love you guys out there!

This is really wonderful.

You got to try it.

>> announcer: A cookbook featuring all the recipes from Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking is available for $15.95 plus $7.95 shipping and handling.

The cookbook features 97 recipes, color photos, and cooking tips from Chef Paul.

To order a copy of the companion cookbook, call: And pay by credit card.

Or send a check or money order to: Captioning by CaptionMax www.captionmax.com >> Prudhomme: ♪ That Blue moon ♪ ♪ of Kentucky, ♪ ♪ keep on shinin'.

♪ >> Okay.

>> Prudhomme: I knew that would get 'em started.

They don't want to hear anymore of that.

And I'm going to wrap it up with the foil, and-- >> Stop.

Let's wrap and then show, okay?

>> Prudhomme: It's not fun.

I got 'em.

It looks better.

I have tongs.

Eat the cheese?

Okay.

I'll do that too.

[laughter] Really?

[laughter] That'll shake me up.

[makes honking noises with nose] You know what I think about it?

[makes honking noises with nose] >> Say yum or something good like that.

>> Prudhomme: [growls] Yum.

[chuckles] Ah.

Ah.

Eh.

>> announcer: Funding for Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking was provided by: