Six of the best stews in Pittsburgh right now
Asoup, generally speaking, it’s pretty recognizable as a soup, even if some chunkier offerings might fuel a debate. A broth? That’s pretty clear, even when it’s opaque. A braise? You know a braise when you see one.
A stew, however, sits in a hard-to-define place. Some, such as the Filipino beef caldereta, are nearly as gravyless as a braise. Some, like cioppino, are as brothy as a soup.
“Chunks of meat that are cooked for a long time,” said one friend. “A soup, but thicker,” said another. “A lot of things pulled together to make something special,” said another.
Merriam-Webster doesn’t help. It defines stew as: “fish or meat usually with vegetables prepared by stewing” and then goes on to define stewing as “to boil slowly or with simmering heat.”
How about a dish such as pozole, which boils slowly with simmering heat? Or chili?
Size matters. Generally speaking, with a stew you simmer hunks of meat and, with a braise (or even a soup, in the case of chicken or ham hock), you’re cooking the whole joint in one piece. Time matters less. While a stew often is a slow-cooked dish, there are quite a few versions, particularly seafoodand vegetable-based, that you can prepare in less than an hour.
“A soup is eaten with a spoon, stew with a fork,” editor Polly Higgins’ husband, Dave, suggested.
I think that’s a good starting point, though I’d argue the ideal utensil for a stew is a spork, which is about the only time you can say that a spork is an ideal utensil.
I’d add that the broth or cooking liquid in a stew is purposefully reduced, while that of a soup isn’t. In other words: You’d tip a bowl to drink the last drops of soup broth but you wouldn’t do the same with a stew. With a stew, you’d reach for a hunk of crusty bread or a tortilla to finish what’s left. (Sure, you might do that with a soup, too, but you have options.)
The lauded author Marcella Hazan concurs with these theories in the headnotes for her recipe for “My Father’s Fish Soup,” found in her classic cookbook “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.” She writes: “Although this is called a soup, it’s more of a stew, and no spoon is needed. The juices are usually soaked up with grilled or toasted slices of bread.”
How do you define stew? Email me. I’d love to hear from you.
In the meantime, take a little international stew tour. These six are some of the best you can find right now in Pittsburgh.
Ladybird’s Luncheonette: Beef Bourguignon Hand Pie (France meets Appalachia by way of Cornwall)
OK, so now that we’ve established
that “stew” is pretty hard to define, there is one prototypical example that even Merriam-Webster might use if it had to illustrate its squishy definition: beef bourguignon. Hunks of browned beef, bacon lardons, baby onions and mushrooms (and, perhaps, carrots) are slow-simmered for hours in stock and red wine (typically Burgundy, of course). All of those components blend together with a melt-in-your mouth tenderness that offers a hyper-concentrated, beefy-beef flavor bolstered by the red wine reduction and sweet, tender vegetables.
Various versions of the dish have been around since the mid-1800s (and, I’m sure, long before that), and the recipe was codified by Escoffier’s 1903 tome “Le Guide Culinaire.” It’s one of the most celebrated dishes in French cuisine, which, given the European country’s impact on global dining, is saying something.
I never suspected there could be a better companion for this French standard than a crusty wedge of sourdough bread, and yet the always extraordinary Ladybird’s Luncheonette in Beaver found a way to oneup things by encasing its Aplus version of the stew with a flaky, crunchy pastry that hits the multi-layered pinnacle of what a hand pie ought to be. Chef/co-owner Jade Cageao adds a little bit of punchy Brie and not only does it give the amalgamation an extra kick of France, but some of that cheese seeps out to the edges with a bit of broth to give the fringes of the hefty stew-pie a caramelized flavor boost.
It almost makes me not want to have the traditional version of this dish again.
459 3rd St., Second Floor, Beaver; ladybirdsluncheonette.com
Nak Won Garden: Budae Jjigae aka Army Stew (Korea)
Budae Jjigae, otherwise known as Army stew (or
Military stew), is a dish born of destitution that’s now celebrated as an iconic national treasure of culinary ingenuity. According to Nak Won Garden owner Yang-Suk Beondy, fresh food was scarce in Korea in the wake of the Korean War, and canned or preserved meats such as SPAM, sausage and other processed goods were smuggled away from United States military bases or donated as surplus. Whatever could be scraped up was combined with shelf-stable Korean ingredients such as kimchi and gochujang into a one-pot dish designed to feed a family.
There are countless renditions of Army Stew. At Nak Won Garden in Shadyside, the dish is served hot potstyle on a propane-powered burner. There’s so much going on in there, yet it all works in harmony. Enjoy multiple variations on a theme of soft protein with chunks of tofu, oval-sliced pieces of hot dog, wedges of spam and tender slices of beef. Fermented beans, tteok (chewy rice cakes), crunchy bean sprouts, pickled zucchini, sliced onions, carrots and a bouquet of bitter
greens round out the intoxicating mix of ingredients, all which comes in a bubbling, gorgeously spicy broth.
Beondy adds a brick of dry ramen noodles (a slightly more contemporary, but now essential, component to the stew) just prior to service, so spend a moment inhaling the heady, chili-forward aroma of the dish for the three minutes it takes for the noodles to soften. Then, go wild.
5504 Centre Ave., Shadyside
Casa Brasil: Feijoada (Brazil)
Feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, draws largely from the legacy of Portuguese colonialism in the South American country. Indeed, you can find variations of pork and bean stews throughout the Portuguese colonial world; Azorean Cafe in Bloomfield offers a Portuguese stew with chorizo, pinto beans and chicken. In Brazil, the slow-cooked dish begins with a base of black beans and various cuts of fresh and salted pork, its broth enhanced with bay leaves, onions and green peppers.
Casa Brasil chef and coowner Keyla Nogueira Cook prepares feijoada on Saturdays and Sundays at her Highland Park restaurant. Cook uses a mix of pork shanks, bacon and smoked sausage for the pork component; the combination gives the stew a sweet, salty and smoky flavor profile. She serves her savory, hearty dish with stir-fried collard greens, farofa, Brazilian vinaigrette (a peppy, salsa-like
condiment) and oranges.
Mix everything together, add a few dashes of housemade hot sauce, and crush the warming, energy-giving meal.
5904 Bryant St., Highland Park; casa-brasil.com Leon’s Caribbean Restaurant: Oxtail stew and brown stew chicken (Jamaica)
The stewed meats at Leon’s Caribbean are so tasty that two of the Allentown spot’s dishes — oxtail stew and brown stew chicken — deserve a shoutout in this roundup. At Leon’s both are umami sensations, humming with the seductive bass notes of the Maillard reaction at work.
Stewing oxtails — the upper parts of a bovine tail — is a culinary technique with a long global history, and the lush, collagen-rich meat that’s a product of slow- and- low cooking is particularly celebrated in Jamaican cu is in Browned segments of the tail are stewed for several hours with a bevy of aromatics, including nearlyburnt brown sugar, ginger, thyme and allspice, which means you get an unctuous dish with earthy flavors and a very pleasing hint of bitterness in the back note.
Brown stew chicken, a tender stew popular throughout the Caribbean, is another surefire winner at Leon’s. Whole chicken is cut into pieces and marinated with ingredients such as browning sauce (basically, smoky caramelized brown sugar; some commercial versions also add vegetable or meat bouillon, lime juice, herbs, garlic and salt that’s then cooked in oil until deeply browned. The bird is stewed in a diluted version of the marinade with onions, peppers, tomatoes, herbs such as thyme, spices such as allspice, garlic and more of the browning. It falls off the bone at Leon’s, where it’s succulent comfort food. 823 E Warrington Ave., Allentown; leonscaribbean.com Yue Bai Wei: Clay Pot Chicken (China) Clay pot stews are common throughout China, with many regions offering their own signature touches. At Yue Bai Wei in Squirrel Hill, executive chef/ co- owner Zhiyuan Tang looks to Sichuanese country cooking for his family-style versions of the dish. Tang currently has nine on his menu — and his stewed chicken is a standout. It comes to the table with a heady, fragrant nose with warming anise notes in the background. Tang cooks hunks of bone-in chicken legs with ginger, scallions, onions, garlic, Sichuan bean paste and a “secret” sauce until the meat is tender but not quite fall-off-the-bone. The eonions,. sliced with the grain, keep a little of their crunch and pick up a gorgeous sweetness as they cook. There’s a beguiling depth of flavor in the chili-infused stewing liquid, which almost eats like a hearty broth but is best when served over rice. (I’d love to see how this is with fried potatoes, too). Yue Bai Wei’s version is just on the tame side of spicy, though flakes of chili peppers pleasantly linger on the lips due to the richness of the stew. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself reaching for your chopsticks and spoon several more times after saying, “OK, this really is the last bite I’m taking. Alright, maybe one more but that’s it.”