Hobo Stew or Community Stew supposedly originated in the West Coast of the USA in the early 1900. As legend has it a group of hobos gatered in the evening with what ingredients they managed to get during the day and made a large stew out of it that they ate together.

For me it’s a good way to clean out the pantry of odds and ends and still get a hearty meal out of it, instead of wasting food.

You can eat this all year round but it really shines in the colder days of autumn or winter.

Originally it’s made in a large pot but since this is one serving I made it in a smaller billy pot and used a skillet to brown the ingredients. If you make this in a large pot for a larger group of people you can brown the ingredients straight in the pot instead.

If you want to be fancy you can replace some of the water with red wine or a darker beer, porter or stout.

If you want to make a vegetarian variety, leave out the meat and add more vegetables.

Since this dish is supposed to simmer for some time you’ll need fuel for at least 30 minutes.

You’ll need about 6-7 dl of water for this dish, including washing up.

Ingredients for 1 serving

• 1 handfull of stewing steak, 75 - 100 g

• 3 egg sized potatos

• 1 small carrot

• 1 small onion

• 1 bay leaf

• ½ bullion cube of your choice

• ½ tbsp all purpose flour

• 1 tbsp tomato purée

• 1 garlic clove

• salt, pepper, seasoning

• 4-5 dl fluid, water, wine or beer

• Parsley for garnish (optional)

1. Start by cutting the meat and vegetables in ½ inch dices

2. Brown the meat, onion and carrot

3. Douse the pot with the flour and stirr until everything is evenly coated.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients, and water enough to cover it all. Season to taste

5. Cover the pot and let it simmer for 20 minutes, stir every now and then.

6. When meat and vegetables are fork tende it’s ready to eat.

7. Plate up or eat straight from the pot. Use a pice of bread to scrape the pot, it’s good and makes washing up easier.

You can watch how I made it in this video