What’s Cooking: Brown & Red Stew

Red Stew Chicken with Channa/Chickpeas (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)

What’s Cooking is a series in which I answer questions and share advice about food and cooking that you have but may be too shy to ask.

Guyanese make two types of stews – brown and red. The most popular ingredient for these two types of stew is chicken, though we do make stews with other meats and seafood. In the Caribbean, mainly brown stews are made. The question I received was: what is the difference between a brown stew and a red stew?

Apart from the obvious difference in colour, the flavour of a brown stew differs from that of a red stew and vice versa. But let’s start by looking at what is a brown stew and what is a red stew.