Basic vegetable stew

Basic stew with the Instant Pot

This is a simple basic recipe that can easily be adapted to your personal taste, or to what you have at home. Serve with bread, pasta or rice.

The reason that the recipe doesn't have a lot of exact weights and dimensions is because it always depends on what you feel like. Sometimes we make this stew with harissa, the next time with Italian or Provencal herbs, sometimes we add Turkish garlic sausage, lamb, or chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of oil for frying,
• 1 package passata or diced tomatoes, possibly a few fresh diced tomatoes as extra,
• 1-2 zucchini cut into coarse pieces (really coarse, otherwise there will be nothing left),
• 2-3 carrots in slices of about 1-2cm,
• 1 onion cut into thick half rings,
• 4-6 cloves of garlic,
• 2 large potatoes in large chunks,
• and what kind of vegetables you want: white or Chinese cabbage, eggplant, peppers, etc.. Please note that you have to cut everything quite coarsely.
• a pinch of sugar for the tomato sauce.
• Spices to taste, for example 2 teaspoons pul biber (Turkish chili flakes), some (smoked) paprika powder, turmeric
• Sometimes I add a (half) cup of stock before cooking to give it a full taste, the result is a bit more soupy but you can easily thicken it on Sauté after high pressure cooking.

Preparation method

1. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté High and wait until Hot appears on the display
2. Put your oil in the pan and add the onion, fry it until translucent
3. Saute garlic briefly, about 30 seconds (make sure it doesn't brown)
4. Add tomatoes and optional stock and scrape the bottom well (with a wooden/plastic tool of course)
5. Add the rest of the vegetables and press cancel to stop the Sauté program
6. Set the pan to Pressure Cook/manual High for 5 minutes
7. After the cooking program, wait 10-15 minutes for an NR
8. Taste after cooking whether the sauce is well seasoned and add some extra salt and herbs if necessary. Is the sauce too thin? Then put your pan on Sauté low for a while to thicken. (can also be used on high, but make sure that it does not burn on the bottom)