One-pot potato and vegetable stew with raw ham and gherkins in ajvar-mozzarella sauce

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 500 g potatoes, mainly waxy
• 150 g zucchini
• 1 bell pepper(s), yellow
• 100 g carrot(s)
• 2 small onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• 50 g gherkins
• 125 g raw ham, diced
• 125g mozzarella
• 2 tbsp mild ajvar
• 1 tbsp, heaped tomato paste
• 2 tbsp oil for frying
• 250 ml vegetable stock
• 100 ml dry white wine
• 1 tbsp oregano, dried
• 2 tsp paprika powder, smoked
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• ¼ tsp chili flakes
• n. B. Pfeffer
• some basil leaves

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 50 minutes

Peel the potatoes, dice them, and place them in a bowl of water to remove some of the starch. Wash the zucchini, remove the stems, halve or quarter them lengthwise, depending on their size, and then cut into fairly thin slices. Wash the bell peppers, remove the stems, cores, and white inner membranes, and then roughly dice them. Peel the carrots and then cut them into fairly thin slices. Halve thicker carrots lengthwise if necessary. Peel the onions, quarter them, and separate the individual leaves. Peel the garlic. Chop the gherkins. Drain the mozzarella, then cut them into smaller cubes. Finally, drain the potatoes and let them drain. Heat half of the oil in a high-fat pan and fry the potato cubes and carrots over high heat for about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. Pour in the remaining oil and add the onion wedges and bell pepper to the pan. Sauté everything for another 4-5 minutes over high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium, add the cured ham cubes, and press in the garlic. Sauté the cured ham and garlic over medium heat for another 3 minutes. Then add the zucchini and sauté for about 1 more minute. Add the tomato paste, stir, and sauté briefly. Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add the vegetable stock, ajvar, oregano, ground coriander seeds, and smoked paprika, and bring everything to a boil. Simmer for another 3-4 minutes over low to medium heat, until the vegetables are cooked to your liking and ideally still have a bit of a bite. Reduce the heat to low, add the gherkins and mozzarella cubes, and melt the cheese while stirring, until the sauce becomes slightly creamy. Finally, adjust the heat to your liking with chili flakes and pepper. When serving, garnish with freshly picked basil leaves. Note: Additional salt should not be necessary, as the broth, ajvar, and cured ham already provide enough salt in the dish. Tips: If you have a stove that reacts slowly to temperature changes (ceramic hob), you should reduce the heat a little before adding the garlic so that it doesn’t burn due to the high heat from frying the potatoes, etc., and then become bitter. You could even turn the stove down to a lower heat and then add the garlic and cured ham. Theoretically, you could also add all the ingredients together in the pan and then fry everything. But then you would end up with mushy zucchini, depending on the temperature of the pan, burnt garlic, burnt and dry cured ham, or potatoes and carrots with no roasted flavor. Therefore, it is better to add the ingredients to the pan step by step, following the procedure above. Then they will all be cooked more or less evenly in the end. If you don’t want any alcohol in your dish, add a little mild vinegar and use more broth.