Verna and Salma’s Westfall Stew

Likewise, if you’ve ever played a Human all the way through Elwynn Forest, some of the next people you will meet are Verna Furlbrow and Salma Saldean:

The essential components of Westfall Stew are:

Okra — you can get this vegetable fresh, frozen, or canned, depending on your location and the season

Stringy Vulture Meat — leftover roasted chicken or turkey (perhaps from Pilgrim’s Bounty) would work fabulously for this. You could also use raw poultry. When you add the Stringy Vulture Meat will depend on whether you are starting with raw or leftovers.

Goretusk Snout — a hard cooked sausage such as polish sausage, kielbasa, or andouille sausage

Murloc Eye — scallops, but you could choose something different to suit your taste

Based on these ingredients, Westfall Stew sounded a whole lot like a gumbo of some kind to me. I consulted a handful of gumbo and jambalaya recipes, then basically made it up as I went along.

Chop an onion, a couple stalks of celery, and some green bell pepper. Mix the chopped vegetables together in a bowl. Mince a clove or two of garlic (depending on how much garlic you like), but keep it separate from the other vegetables.

If you are using raw Stringy Vulture Meat, cut it into bite size pieces, then sautee it in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until the surfaces are no longer pink. Remove to another dish and set aside

Sautee the Goretusk Snouts in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. When the pieces have browned, remove them to another dish and set aside. You can put them in the same dish as the Vulture Meat.

Lower the heat to medium-low and add ~3 T butter and 1/4 c flour to the drippings in the pan. Stir the flour and butter together and keep stirring. The mixture will slowly darken as the milk solids in the butter and the starches in the flour caramelize.

At about the point when you start wondering if you’re doing quests in Outland, dump in about half of the bowl full of chopped vegetables and the minced garlic. Keep stirring until the flour has darkened to a reddish brown color and the onions have become translucent, another 5 minutes or so.

Pour into the pan a cup of chicken broth. Add two large tomatoes, chopped, including the juices, or a can of chopped tomatoes with juice. If you are using fresh tomatoes, you might want to use two cups of chicken broth to have enough liquid.
Season with Autumnal Herbs — bay leaf, thyme, oregano, sage, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil.

Add the Goretusk Snout pieces and Stringy Vulture Meat to the stew. If you are using leftover roasted Stringy Vulture Meat, now is the time to put it in. Turn the heat down and allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Chop the Okra. Add the chopped Okra and the remaining onion, celery, and bell pepper to the stew and allow to simmer for another half hour while you cook enough rice to suit the number of people you are feeding.

When the rice is ready, add the Murloc Eyes to the stew and cook for another 2-5 minutes until they are no longer translucent.

Ladle the stew over the rice and enjoy!

This turned out well enough, I think, to send in to Angelya’s Harvest Festival Bake-Off. 😀