Pine Bark Stew With Jimmy Kennedy

So we’re out here on

Lake Champlain, Southern Lake Champlain,

and we’re going to be out here

all night and, you know,

kind of bad thing,

I guess you can say is the weather

has been about 70 to 75 all week.

And last night it snowed

eight inches at my house

and it’s about 36 degrees now.

But we’ve got a good fire.

We got some tents set up.

So we’re going to be good

and hopefully go catch catfish here soon.

This dish here, what

we’re going to make tonight

and we’ll go get it started now

and catch a catfish here a little bit.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to catch one.

I’m pretty confident,

you know, it is fishing.

But anyway, it’s pine bark stew.

And this is a super famous

dish, especially in South Carolina.

And the name Pine Bark Stew comes through

when there three

or four different versions of this.

But when the Patriots during

the Revolutionary War

were hiding out in swamps,

they were forced to eat their fish stew

from pine bark plates.

And a couple other versions would be

where they saw Indians eating the fish stew

using pine utensils, utensils

carved from pine,

which I kind of believe that.

And other folks say it was just

the flavor of the stew

because it was cooked on pine

and they use pine and bowels, you know,

and all type of wood– pine .

And

for me, I think that’s

probably what it was, you know, maybe

a combination of all of those.

But either way, it’s a super simple dish.

It’s great to cook outside,

especially with fresh fish.

And

we’ll get it started.

Like I said,

we don’t have a fish yet, but

we’re going to be confident.

First thing we did is

we cooked a bunch of bacon

and just got that crumbled off over there

that we take that out, remove it.

And that’s right in the bacon

grease right there.

Got some onions.

And that is one

nice, hot, fire right there.

You know, all that smoke

and I’m also throwing

in some juniper berry

and I cook with these a lot,

I was at home,

I would probably

just put these in cheesecloth

and just kind of season it.

But I’m just gonna go right in.

And this is so hot

that I think it’s just going

to soften those up

and the juniper berries

are going to give it

kind of that little tiny flavor

that we’re looking for.

All right,

next, we’re going to add some

I don’t really measure this

round here and it’s cold

and we’re just going to kind of go with.

The combination of.

The fish stock I had left over.

And some chicken stock.

So next thing is, I’m going to put some

tomato paste a lot of times

this recipe calls for ketchup, but,

you know, you can use that if you want.

But I’m going to put in

some tomato paste.

I like I like the flavor.

It gives

just a little bit in there,

maybe a little more.

We could put some tomatoes in too.

And we’re going to add some potatoes

and these are some beautiful

little red and gold and they’re so small,

I’m just going to leave them whole.

What we’re going to do

is we’re just going to let this summer

I’m going to cool it down,

pull it off the fire a little bit,

it’s a real slow summer.

Maybe put it on top of the Breeo here

and just let it kind of stay warm.

Then we’re going to add the tomatoes in

right before we add the fish

and add the bacon back in

and it’ll pick it up a little bit

and be real tasty.

Oh, baby,

we got fish for the stew.

Not a bad one either.

So we got us a catfish right

as the sun went down,

they kind of started biting a little bit

and these are a couple of filets

that fish probably weighed

about four pounds for eating size.

And what we’re gonna do now is cut this,

I think, into quarters.

These are nice, nice,

firm white filets right

here, about as fresh as you can get.

First, we’ve got the stew

and here we got it going really, really

good. Going to add some fresh tomatoes.

Already got the tomato paste in there.

I’m going to throw a more tomatoes in.

We’ve got some seasoning.

We got a little bit of cinnamon, too,

to give it that new flavor. some thyme

with salt, pepper, just a little bit.

You don’t need much.

And then what we’re going to do

is put the catfish

right on top of that,

I’m going to lay it

on top of the potatoes, tomatoes.

Just let it steam for a little bit.

We started this.

It was probably an hour ago

before, you know, when we got

it started and then we just it took us

a little bit to catch one.

And this is Pine Bark Stew

this could easily

be the state dish of South Carolina

or anywhere in the South, really.

It’s really, really tasty.

Too easy to make and easy

to make out outdoors.

No, you don’t need that many ingredients,

especially if you plan on catching fish.

All we did was bring tomatoes, potatoes

and some seasoning,

a little bit of broth.

And you could even do that,

you know, over the campfire.

We just go let this cook.

We put the

put the lid on for a little bit.

It’s been raining out here.

So you can see there’s that.

Weather not always agreeing with us, but

we’re having a great time.

All right, folks,

we got some done Stew in here.

Ready, man, I’m ready.

And we’ve done this before.

And we have I’m always ready,

you know I do.

Doesn’t get any better than that.

Now, this is this is right

out of Lake.

Get you a bit of this good stuff right there.

Let me know what you think.

We’ll see who’s next.

You know, burn my mouth off.

Yeah, it’s pretty hot.