by Rhui Chatar

Created on: February 09, 2009   Last Updated: February 10, 2009

Times being what they are, old stand bys of soup, stews and casseroles are making more frequent appearances at home and in lunch boxes. I found myself pondering the question of why something as common, and universally understood as a beef stew, could be so diverse in it combination of ingredients as well as preparation techniques and not seldom considered a low fat menu choice.

My mother taught me to make beef stew as her mother had taught her. Since that time I have ventured out to the bleeding edge of culinary arts, and tried some different ingredients and techniques that I've been exposed to from friends and colleagues.

Traditionally, I was a boiler of meat. I cubed my beef, sliced carrots in rounds, diced potatoes, onions and a celery stalk, then tossed all into a heavy pot, covered with water, salted, and set to simmer for what seemed like hours. Basically, this is how my mother approached most recipes she called soups or stews.

Everything was cut up to a more or less uniform size, placed in a pot, covered with water and left to simmer, while spices were added a various stages to correct taste, keeping the pot on track toward the target of a savory one dish meal.

My mother's stews always leaned toward the soup-ish side. This due to my father's deeply ingrained suspicion of all things containing sauces. He'd had a bad experience while in the navy with regard to food, and came away with the belief that all sauces were hiding something that hadn't quite gone right. My mother loved him, and so made food that he didn't feel threatened by.

To date my favorite means of starting a beef stew is to cut up a nice 7Bone-in steak into reasonably sized pieces with all the fat trimmed off. After being salted and peppered toss the pieces in a good quality olive oil, then roast in the oven with the bones. This will become the base for my beef stew.

Note that I don't use the supermarket's defined Beef for Stew' or Stew-ing Beef'. I don't like to use beef they don't share with you just what part of the beef it came from.

A 7 Bone-in steak on the other hand, is easily identified, has lean and marbled portions, and of course, bones. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of roasted bones with regard to flavoring anything boiled.

Lately, we've come to view bones as inconvenience of meat and when you take the fat out of the mix, you really need bones for flavor. Something we don't always like to think about, bones are part of the animal that the meat grew on, so we give bones to the

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