Stew

Beef Stew Editor's Note: This recipe and introductory text are excerpted from The Exotic Kitchens of Peru, by Copeland Marks. We've also added some tips of our own below. For a complete guide to Peruvian cuisine, click here. This is a special dish that is only prepared on Mondays. My teacher told me that everyone she knew cooked Espesado on Mondays, a ritual that is universally accepted. In the clean and complete Central Market of Chiclayo, a number of the small eating shops were dispensing this to diners who knew what they wanted and expected it on Mondays.

(Stufadin di Zuca Zala) As many Ashkenazic Jews emigrated to the Veneto, it's not surprising to find a Venetian recipe for a stew reminiscent of the familiar Ashkenazic tsimmes, in which sweet potatoes or squash are paired with meat for a savory one-dish meal. In Mantua, a similar dish made with a beef rump roast is called brasato Rachele. Despite the use of the squash and Marsala, the stufadin is not overly sweet.

The first American Jewish recipe I found for fricassee, a kind of ragout — usually made with chicken, browned lightly with onions in fat and then simmered in the drippings — came from a section on Jewish recipes in Jennie June's American Cookery Book of 1866. Jennie June Croley was one of the first American newspaper women and founder of the Sorosis Club. In her only cookbook she included a chapter on Jewish "receipts," which probably came to her from her Jewish friend, Genie H. Rosenfeld. "These are all original and reliable, -- the contribution of a superior Jewish housekeeper in New York," she wrote. Mrs. Rosenfeld was the wife of the dramatist, Sydney Rosenfeld, who was also the first editor of Puck. This nineteenth-century recipe cooks well today. The slow sautéing of the onions along with the nutmeg, mace, and thyme enhances the taste of the chicken. Serve it with rice.

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