brown stew

brown stew (countable and uncountable, plural brown stews)

1. (cooking, dated) A stew in which the meat is browned before being added
   • 1916, Mary Emma Williams and Katharine Rolston Fisher, Elements of the theory and practice of cookery; a textbook of domestic science for use in schools (New York & London: Macmillan) p.172:

     For a brown stew, the meat and sometimes the vegetables are browned in hot fat before being simmered

   • 1940s, "Me Boys, Have You Any Complaints?"; printed in Jerry Silverman Songs of the British Isles (2012: Mel Bay Publications). →ISBN p. 44:

     For the duffs are now brown, and the stew is brown stew,

     They're all fancy names for the scoff.

   • 1959 October 21, Kevin Boland, "Written Answers. - Army Scale of Rations." Dáil Éireann debates Vol. 177 No.1 p.69 cc.54–56:

     The menu in respect of each day of the week ended 11th September, 1959, for a Dublin Barracks was as follows:— ... [Date] 9-9-59 ... [Dinner] Brown Stew [etc.]

   • 2012 October 11, "Famous faces feature in cathedral’s new cookbook", Kilkenny People:

     There’s everything from Eva Holmes’ piquant salad dressing or Edward Hayden’s lemon and thyme stuffing, to Mrs Cusack’s brown stew or Antonia Bottoni’s Cape Malay chicken curry.

   • 2014, Sam Miller, A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes (Random House: →ISBN p. 33:

     Brown stew and Irish stew were among the dishes that appeared each week on the nursery menu.

2. (cooking, Caribbean) A stew cooked or served with a brown-coloured sauce
   • 2008, B. W. Higman, Jamaican Food: History, Biology, Culture (University of the West Indies Press: →ISBN p.324:

     Increasingly preferred was the method known as "brown stew". Sullivan had recommended adding a brown gravy to broiled kingfish and stewing junefish in a brown sauce, thickened with flour.

   • 2013, David Daley and Gwendolyn Daley, "No. 6: Brown Stew Chicken" Caribbean Cookery Secrets: How to Cook 100 of the Most Popular West Indian, Cajun and Creole Dishes (Little, Brown; →ISBN:

     Brown Stew is simply a meat/fish dish in gravy.

• (stew in which the meat is browned before being added): white stew