It has been cold here in New York City over the past month. Every few days ice and snow pelt the Tri-state area as temperatures rarely reach freezing. Now is the perfect time (especially with a storm coming overnight) to make a large pot of stew that will warm you up and provide you with meals for the next few days. My mother made a vegetable and potato stew in a tomato based broth growing up that, just thinking about it, makes me think of cold winter nights.
Stewing is one of the simplest ways to prepare food as well as one of the oldest. In its simplest definition, a stew is simple a collection of vegetables and/or meat cooking in a pot with a liquid and served with the sauce it was prepared in. People have been making stews since ancient times. Before the advent of pots which could withstand high temperatures, people would make stews by boiling ingredients inside the stomachs of animals.
In every culture, there is a recipe for some thing resembling a stew. Meat based stews are started by browning the meat, often using tougher cuts which soften as they cook, before adding stock or wine and letting the ingredients simmer until the liquid reduces. One of my favorite recipes to start from is the Pioneer Woman's Sunday Night Stew which is a great example of a beef stew recipe. In my next post, I will put my own spin on beef stew.
