# Too much water in stew, what to do?



## Erin Pavlina (Nov 11, 2001)

Sometimes when I make a veggie stew the veggies are all lovely and tender and fully cooked but there is still a lot of water in the pot. What do you do? Should I just take it out and strain it? Or would that lose all the spices in the water? Is there a way to cook off the water quickly? Should I remove the cover?


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## 425lisamarie (Mar 4, 2005)

Well you should aim for using less liquid to begin with, but to fix it if this happens: Scoop out everything in to a big bowl, then boil the liquid untill it reduces down. Only potential problem with this is if you salted perfectly, it may become overly salty after reducing. You could always cook a little extra soemthing to add to the pot.

Or better yet IMO, peel and chop a white or sweet potato, boil in water like you are making mashed potatoes, then drain and puree, add to stew and it will thicken the juices really nicely

If you mean in general for future, taking the lid off the pot will surely help reduce extra liquid accumulating. I wouldn't strain any liquid though, you lose valuable nutrients. I usually thicken stew with pureed sweet potato on purpose


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## frontstreetmama (Jun 5, 2007)

another option is to make a quick roux type of mixture -- just take a tablespoon of flour and add about a 1/3 of cup of boiling water and mix it until it is a little more liquid than paste and stir it into the pot... leave the lid off and it should thicken up... (also, you can remove lid about 1/2 an hour before serving and that allows quite a bit of liquid to evaporate -- you usually need to cover your vegetables with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water when you start out -- remember you can always add more liquid -- another thing I do (depending on your food preference) is use powdered gravy instead of flour but mixed the way I do the flour...


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## [email protected] (Jul 11, 2007)

Make some dumplings. They will soak up the extra liquid and are yummy.


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## ellee (Oct 1, 2008)

You can remove some of the stock and freeze separately to use for recipes that call for stock - like mashed potatoes, etc.

Scoop the veggies and cook some pasta or barley in the stock and add it all together.

If a more gravy-like stew would be appealing, at the end of the cook, dissolve cornstarch in cold water and mix that in. The stock will thicken up.

Use less water to begin with - you can always add a cup or so more stock more stock anytime during the cooking process.

mmm...stew!


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