You can thicken your stew without flour or cornstarch by using arrowroot powder, chickpea flour or potato starch instead of all-purpose flour.
You can also use uncooked rice to thicken your stew.
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy.
Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef, pork, lamb, poultry, sausages, and seafood.
Soup is any combination of ingredients cooked in liquid.
Stew is any dish that's prepared by stewing—that is, submerging the ingredients with just enough liquid to cook them through at a simmer in a covered pot for a long time.
Beef stew meat typically comes from the large shoulder of a cow, more commonly called “chuck”. But roast, top and bottom round, tips, and even steak can be used as stew meat.
The world's oldest known evidence of stew was found in Japan, dating to the Jōmon period.
Additionally, Herodotus says that the Scythians (8th to 4th centuries BC) "put the flesh into an animal's paunch, mix water with it, and boil it like that over the bone fire.
Irish stew (Irish: stobhach/Stobhach Gaelach) is a stew native to Ireland that is traditionally made with root vegetables and lamb or mutton, but also commonly with beef.