KITCHEN CHRONICLES
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THE NEW STEW
An updated version of the hearty, cold-weather dinner goes way beyond meat and potatoes TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSAN SEMENAK
STEW: A dish of meat and vegetables cooked slowly in liquid in a closed pan. Quintessential winter food. A pot of stew simmering long and slowly on the stove warms both the kitchen and the soul. But the traditional beef or lamb ragout that so readily comes to mind isn’t all there is. Stew is more than meat and potatoes in brown sauce. The “new stew,” as I call it, comes together much like the old classic, but is lighter and less meaty than grandma’s version. It is often vegetarian, relying on chunky vegetables for heft, and bright, bold spicing for spark. Maybe it is something like a Mediterranean ratatouille, with eggplant and red pepper slow-cooked
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THE WINTER ISSUE
until they seem to melt. Or a Middle Eastern stew that derives its luxurious richness from the starches released by lentils, chickpeas or lima beans cooked in broth over low heat. Layering flavours and textures is the key to cooking interesting stews. Sometimes, I toss cut-up vegetables (such as cauliflower, carrots, sweet potato, red onion or winter squash) in olive oil, salt and whole spices and then roast them in a high-heat oven until the edges are dark and almost charred before adding them to the stew pot. (The roasting coaxes extra flavour out of them.) It’s exciting, too, to include ingredients that are unexpected. Coconut milk—borrowed
from south Indian and Thai curries—adds a sweet creaminess. Grated ginger, Thai curry paste, miso, chopped anchovies or tomato paste whisked in as onions and garlic are sautéing add another dimension, and a hit of umami. At the end, I might whisk in a spoonful of Dijon mustard, or maybe a splash of apple cider vinegar or lemon or lime juice, just for the zing. The downside to old-school stews is their boring brown colour. But there are plenty of ways to make both meat and vegetable-based stews look as beautiful as they taste. A teaspoon of turmeric, for instance, turns the
