Don't Get Yourself in a Stew

At some stage as a cook, you will be confronted with some complex questions. Questions that will have you tossing and turning and I am not talking about your latest salad creation. These questions are deep, dark and murky like an authentic gumbo or classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

What is the difference between a stew and a casserole? And where do cassoulet, hotpot, tagine and stroganoff fit in? You see, I can read your mind and speak your thoughts.

It was Jonathan Swift who stated, “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster”. So too, do we need to thank our forebears for trying all the different parts of a killed beast and working out the best way to cook them. Although skewers and kebabs are no doubt the original means to cook meat, it is not hard to see how the stew came about. It could soften the tougher cuts of meat, make other unmentionable parts palatable and enable all manner of other things to be added, to make a hearty stew. It is also the “all manner of things” that could be important too.

Man has not until relatively recently had a refrigerator and larder packed with food from which to select on a whim what you might have to eat tonight. In leaner times vegetables could be made palatable by the slow cooking and the meat within the dish could be disguised. I am told stews of rat and bat, dog and snake, are all delectable!

Before stews could come about though, humankind had to develop some means to contain the fluid and ingredients long enough to cook in or over a fire. There are recipes for stews from Roman times. So called primitive tribes have used conch or turtle shells to boil water in. But the development of pottery some 10,000 years ago was the impetus for the development of stews. This is perhaps why many stewed dishes bear their name from the container used to prepare them in. e.g. tagine, casserole, hotpot.

The lines that define the various types of stewed dishes are blurred. When is a soup not a soup but a stew for example? We all might have our personal beliefs, but a strict definition is harder to make and in the end, when cooking has become creative, fun and an experience to enjoy, who cares if you are eating a hotpot, casserole, stew or soup.

The Oxford dictionary defines a stew as; “Cook slowly in simmering liquid in a closed container”. The other names for stewed meat dishes may come from a variety of sources, no pun intended;

1. What the stew is cooked in: e.g. casserole, an oval shaped earthenware dish, usually cooked in the oven rather than on top. Also tagine, a earthenware pot.
2. The main ingredient: e.g. bouillabaisse, a fish stew in a spicy red juice. Caldeirada, a fish stew from Portugal.
3. The nature of the liquid the stew is cooked in e.g. ragout, a stew of meat but in a highly seasoned stock, or stroganoff a liquid which includes sour cream as a base.
4. Regional differences e.g. cassoulet, a French stew of meat and beans. Burgoo, a stew from Kentucky. Goulash, Hungarian stew.
5. Just something different e.g. hotpot which traditionally is a stew with potato on top or in Asia, a cooking system with a bowl and burner in one where items are thrown in and retrieved as they cook. The fluid is then eaten later.

These days, our definitions are much less rigid. A recent recipe by Rodney Dunn in Gourmet Traveler had a ragout of broad beans. This consisted of chicken stock, broad beans and fennel. There was no meat and no specific spiced broth although tarragon was used as the herb. In other words in current times, it seems to be in order to name your dish according to your whim and your intended audience. So you could really call your meal a hotpot, a pot au feu, a stew or casserole and no one is really going to be racing to dial the culinary police to have you locked away for misrepresentation.

And anyway, stews were never an exact science and this is perhaps where the freedom and enjoyment originates. Every culture has their version of a good old stew but the exact recipe for each, is inexact. Waterzooi, a Belgian stew, which apparently translates to “watery mess”, is made with any type of fish or even chicken. Similarly, Puchaero, a Mexican stew, is made with either beef, veal, chicken, or bacon and has either rice or vermicelli as part of the base.

Some exotic names sound exciting, disguising the ingredients beautifully. For example Khash does sound remarkably better to my ears than Armenian stew made with cows' feet. Even though Khash which was once a peasant meal, is now a gourmet item with health providing qualities attributed to it, I doubt few Westerners would be tempted with its anglicized description.

Hasenpfeffer, a stew of German origin, is made from marinated rabbit. I think I would have the Hasenpfeffer but would pass on marinated rabbit stew thank you. Similarly, Olla podrida, a classic Spanish stew, may contain pigs' snouts, ribs, ears as well as many other ingredients. To make matters worse, the meaning of podrida, can mean rotten.

It is interesting the cheaper cuts of meat can now demand premium prices. Ox tail and shin for example, the later used in Osso bucco, are 30 - 40% more expensive than blade or chuck steak in New Zealand and Australian supermarkets. When rump, T bone and sirloin steak are on special, they are often at parity with what was once poor man's food.

As in Khash mentioned previously, these cartilaginous cuts have health properties allied with them. Cartilage contains chondroitin sulfate which is used in the reduction in the symptoms of osteoarthritis. Whether this has increased the price or whether it is the baby boomers recoiling at increasing pace of life and change and wanting to return to the simple pleasures of a time when you walked to school and played with your friends afterwards, I have no evidence.

So don't forget the humble stew or whatever you want to call it. It can be creative, it can be economic or outlandish. If given thought, it can be a very healthy way to eat. The choice is very large of what you use. And you can do other things once you have your creation on or in the stove.

Finally, do you remember, for some of us, all those years ago, arriving home from school to a house filled with the tantalizing aromas of cooking, a big pot bubbling away on the stove. Stews are the ultimate slow food and can provide a catalyst to draw family and friends together.

"You cannot be an enemy of someone with whom you share food", "If a pot is cooking the friendship will stay warm." (Arab proverbs).