Melting pot: 17 delicious, warming stews – from a Moroccan fish dish to Persian lamb

Popular all over the world, stew is always a comfort, whether it comes as a Lancashire hotpot, French daube or a summery mix of courgette, mint and butter beans

Stew doesn't have a poor reputation so much as bad branding. The name itself has an aura of disappointment about it, especially the way my children repeated it back to me, after they asked what we were having and I told them. Stew!" they would say, with heavy emphasis on the Ew!" It probably doesn't help that stew" shares an etymological source with the word typhus.

It is perhaps for that reason that we are often drawn to more exotic names for what is essentially the same idea: tagine, ragout, daube. But a basic, unfussy, slow-cooked stew can rival any of these, as Felicity Cloake's perfect beef stew demonstrates. As with most beef stew recipes, this one begins with browning the meat on all sides, in batches, and then removing it before adding anything else.