Traditionally, Frogmore Stew is served with cocktail sauce, garlic butter, and rolls. This really is a dish meant to feed a crowd. When it’s ready, all the goodies are picked up out of the flavorful broth and dumped onto a table covered with newspaper. Once it’s cool enough to touch, you just grab what you like and start dipping the corn into the butter or the potatoes into the cocktail sauce. It’s all very lively and festive.
So what’s in a vegetarian version of this mythical dish? We chose to throw in some fresh artichoke hearts and stems, which are fun to eat, and some vegetarian sausage, which works well for this application.
1 quart vegetable stock
1 quart water
12 ounces beer
1 lemon
1 ½ tablespoons Old Bay (more to garnish)
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
10 cloves garlic, smashed, divided
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon cane sugar
Iodized sea salt (to taste)
4 cups red-skin new potatoes, cut in half
4 ears yellow corn, shucked and cut into quarters
1 pound vegetarian sausage (such as our Vegetarian Boudin on page 151,) cut into quarters
4 fresh artichokes, trimmed*
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup cocktail sauce
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
In a large stock pot over high heat, pour in the stock, water, and beer. Next, cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the pot, and then drop the squeezed lemon into the pot as well. Add the Old Bay seasoning, crushed red pepper flakes, 8 cloves of garlic, liquid smoke, black pepper, and sugar. Check for seasoning and adjust the salt to your taste—it may not need any depending on how salty the vegetable stock was to start. Bring the whole mixture up to a boil. Carefully add the potatoes and cook for about 8 minutes. Add the corn, sausage, and artichokes to the mixture. Cook uncovered for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Fish a variety of the components out of the broth and into a bowl. Add just ½ cup of the broth for the steam and aroma.
While the stew cools a bit, place butter in a microwave-safe dish, along with the 2 reserved garlic cloves. Microwave for 30 seconds until the butter is just melted. Serve your Vegetarian Frogmore Stew garnished with a light sprinkling of Old Bay and a pinch of fresh parsley with garlic butter and cocktail sauce on the side. No need for a fork—just use your hands.
Makes 4 servings.
*For the artichokes: Cut off and discard the top ⅔ of the bulb, leaving the whole stem and the bottom ⅓ of the bulb intact. (There is very little meat in the top portion of the vegetable.) Using a spoon, scoop out the choke, the fibrous center part of the vegetable. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the stem to reveal the tender and edible inside part of the stem. Finally, cut ½ inch off the tip of the stem, stand the artichoke up on the bulb-side, and cut into quarters by running your knife through the stem, heart, and remaining leaves. This leaves you with a few leaves to pull off and scrape out when you are eating the stew, but most importantly, it leaves the heart and stem, the most delicious parts.
NOTE: We recommend using fresh artichoke hearts, but frozen ones will do in a pinch.