All about stews

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STEWS

A beef stew

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables (such as carrots, potatoes, beans, peppers and tomatoes), meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used. While water can be used as the stew-cooking liquid, wine, stock, and beer are also common. Seasoning and flavourings may also be added. Stews are typically cooked at a relatively low temperature (simmered, not boiled), allowing flavours to mingle.

Stewing is suitable for the least tender cuts of meat that become tender and juicy with the slow moist heat method. This makes it popular in low-cost cooking. Cuts having a certain amount of marbling and gelatinous connective tissue give moist, juicy stews, while lean meat may easily become dry.

Stews may be thickened by reduction or with flour, either by coating pieces of meat with flour before searing, or by using a roux or beurre manié, a dough consisting of equal parts of fat and flour. Thickeners like cornstarch or arrowroot may also be used.

Stews are similar to soups, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two. Generally, stews have less liquid than soups, are much thicker and require longer cooking over low heat. While soups are almost always served in a bowl, stews may be thick enough to be served on a plate with the gravy as a sauce over the solid ingredients.

Highland stew, a common Cantabrian dish

HISTORY

Lamb and Lentil Stew

Stews have been made since ancient times. Herodotus says that the Scythians (8th to 4th centuries BC) "put the flesh into an animal's paunch, mix water with it, and boil it like that over the bone fire. The bones burn very well, and the paunch easily contains all the meat once it has been stripped off. In this way an ox, or any other sacrificial beast, is ingeniously made to boil itself."

Amazonian tribes used the shells of turtles as vessels, boiling the entrails of the turtle and various other ingredients in them. Other cultures used the shells of large molluscs (clams etc.) to boil foods in. There is archaeological evidence of these practices going back 8,000 years or more.

There are recipes for lamb stews and fish stews in the Roman cookery book Apicius, believed to date from the 4th century AD. Le Viandier, one of the oldest cookbooks in French, written by the French chef known as Taillevent, has ragouts or stews of various types in it.

Hungarian Goulash dates back to the 9th century Magyar shepherds of the area, before the existence of Hungary. Paprika was added in the 18th century.

The first written reference to 'Irish stew' is in Byron's "The Devil's Drive" (1814): "The Devil ... dined on ... a rebel or so in an Irish stew."

TYPES

In meat-based stews, white stews, also known as blanquettes or fricassées, are made with lamb or veal that is blanched, or lightly seared without browning, and cooked in stock. Brown stews are made with pieces of red meat that are first seared or browned, before a browned mirepoix, and sometimes browned flour, stock and wine are added.

Irish stew

A traditional bouillabaisse from Marseille, with the fish served separately from the soup

Cochinita pibil, cooling in the pan after cooking

Goulash in a traditional "bogrács"

Dubu jjigae (Korean tofu stew)

Pichelsteiner

Chicken Yahni

A pork stew (ragoût de porc)

LIST OF STEWS

• Baeckeoffe, a potato stew from Alsace
• Barbacoa, a meat stew from Mexico
• Beef bourguignon, a French dish of beef stewed in red burgundy wine
• Beef Stroganoff, a stew with beef from Russia
• Bigos, a traditional stew in Polish cuisine
• Birria, a goat stew from Mexico
• Bo Kho, (Vietnamese: bò kho), a beef stew in rich seasonings, served with bread, noodle or plain rice from Vietnam
• Bollito Misto, consisting of beef, veal, and pork simmered in an aromatic vegetable broth from Italy
• Booyah, an American meat stew
• Bouillabaisse, a fish stew from Provence
• Brunswick stew, from Virginia and the Carolinas
• Burgoo, a Kentuckian stew
• Caldeirada, a fish stew from Portugal
• Carbonade flamande, a traditional Belgian beef and onion stew made with Belgian beer
• Carnitas, a pork meat stew from Michoacán, Mexico
• Cassoulet, a French bean stew
• Cawl, a Welsh stew
• Chakapuli, a Georgian stew made with lamp chops, coriander and tarragon leaves and white wine
• Chanakhi, a Georgian lamb stew with tomatoes, aubergines, potatoes, greens and garlic
• Charquican, a Chilean dish
• Chankonabe, a Japanese dish flavoured with soy sauce or miso. Chankonabe is traditionally eaten by sumo wrestlers
• Chicken stew, whole chicken and seasonings
• Chicken paprikash, chicken stew with paprika
• Chili con carne, Mexican-American meat and chilli pepper stew
• Chili sin carne, a meatless American adaptation of the Mexican dish
• Chilorio, a pork stew from Sinaloa, Mexico
• Cincinnati chili, chili developed by Greek immigrants in the Cincinnati area
• Cholent, a slow-cooked Jewish dish eaten on the Shabbat
• Chorba (also spelt "Shorba"), a stew like soup dish found in various Middle Eastern, Central Asian, South Asian and European cuisines
• Cochinita pibil, an orange colour pork stew from Yucatán, Mexico
• Cotriade, a fish stew from Brittany
• Cozido, a traditional Portuguese stew; in Spain, it is called cocido
• Cream stew, a yōshoku Japanese white stew
• Crow stew, a sour cream-based stew made with crow meat, popular in the United States during the Great Depression
• Daal, the Indian legume stew that has many varieties, a staple food throughout Asia
• Daube, a French stew made with cubed beef braised in wine, vegetables, garlic and herbs
• Dinuguan, pork blood stew from the Philippines
• Ewedu, vegetable stew from Nigeria
• Eintopf, (one pot) a German stew that includes a vast number of unlimited ingredients
• Fabada Asturiana, an Asturian bean and meat stew
• Feijoada, Brazilian or Portuguese bean stew
• Fårikål, traditional Norwegian stew with lamb or mutton and white cabbage
• Főzelék, a thick Hungarian vegetable dish
• Gaisburger Marsch, a German dish of stewed beef served with Spätzle and potatoes
• Gheimeh, an Iranian stew with cubed lamb and yellow split peas
• Ghormeh Sabzi, an Iranian stew with green herbs, dried limes, beans and sheep meat
• Goulash, a Hungarian meat stew with paprika
• Gumbo, a Louisiana creole dish
• Hachee, a Dutch type of stew with wine or vinegar
• Haleem, a Pakistani lentil and beef stew
• Hasenpfeffer, a sour, marinated rabbit stew from Germany
• Hayashi rice, a Japanese dish of beef, onions and mushrooms in red wine and demi-glace sauce, served with rice
• Irish stew, made with lamb or mutton, potato, onion and parsley
• Ishtu, a curry in Kerala, India made from chicken or mutton, potato and coconut milk[2]
• Istrian Stew or yota, or jota, a dish popular in Croatian and Slovenian Istra and NE Italy
• I-tal Stew, a Rastafarian vegan dish of mostly Caribbean root vegetables and spices
• Jjigae, a diverse range of Korean stews
• Kalops, a traditional Swedish beef stew, with onions and carrots, served with potatoes and pickled beets
• Kare-kare, stewed beef or oxtail and vegetables in peanut sauce from the Philippines
• Karelian hot pot, from the region of Karelia in eastern Finland
• Khash, a stew from Armenia and Georgia; it is known as "Paça Çorbası ("Soup of Feet" in Turkish) in Turkey
• Khoresht, a variety of Persian stews, often prepared with saffron
• Kokkinisto, a Greek stew with red meat, in a tomato passata with shallots, cinnamon and other spices
• Lancashire hotpot, an English stew
• Lecsó, a summertime favourite in Hungary, vegetable stew with paprika and tomato as main ingredients
• Locro, a South American stew (mainly in the Andes region)
• Machanka, a Belarus and Ukraine pork stew
• Mechado, a Philippine beef stew
• Moqueca, a Brazilian stew with fish (or shrimp, crab or other seafoods) as its main ingredient
• Nihari, a Pakistani beef stew made overnight and served for breakfast
• Nikujaga, a Japanese beef and potato stew
• Olla podrida, a Spanish red bean stew
• Pasticada, a Croatian stew from the region of Dalmatia
• Peperonata, an Italian stew made with peppers
• Pescado Blanco, a white fish stew from Patzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico
• Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup consisting of broth, linguine-shaped rice noodles called bánh phở, a few herbs and meat
• Pichelsteiner a traditional German stew
• Pörkölt, a Hungarian meat stew resembling goulash, flavoured with paprika
• Potjiekos, a South African stew
• Pot-au-feu, a simple French beef stew
• Pozole, a Mexican stew or soup
• Puchero, a Philippine, South American, and Spanish stew
• Pulusu, is a form of stew from Andhra Pradesh in India that is typically sour and cooked with tamarind paste
• Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew
• Ragoût de Porc, a stew with a picture in this article
• Sambar, a thick vegetable stew, from South India
• Sancocho, a stew from the Caribbean
• Scouse, a stew commonly eaten by sailors throughout Northern Europe, popular in seaports such as Liverpool
• The Stew, a stew from La Tour-du-Pin
• Semur, a typical Indonesian stew with beef or chicken, potatoes, carrots, various spices and kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) from Indonesia
• Slumgullion, a watery stew of meat and vegetables
• Stoofvlees, a Belgian beef stew with beer, mustard and laurel
• Tagine, a Moroccan stew, named after the conical pot in which it is traditionally cooked and/or served
• Tharid, a traditional Arab stew of bread in broth
• Waterzooi, a Belgian stew
• Yahni, a Greek, Turkish and Persian stew

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stew