Etymology

The term comes from the French ragoûter, to revive the taste. The etymologically related Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 ragù

Ragù

In Italian cookery, a ragù is a meat-based sauce, which is traditionally served with pasta.Typical Italian ragù include ragù alla bolognese , ragù alla napoletana , and ragù alla Barese...

is a sauce such as Bolognese

Bolognese sauce

Bolognese sauce is a meat-based sauce for pasta originating in Bologna, Italy. It is traditionally used to dress tagliatelle and is one of the two sauces used to prepare "lasagne alla Bolognese"...

 used typically to dress pasta.

Preparation

The basic method of preparation involves slow cooking over a low heat. The potential ingredients are many; ragouts may be prepared with or without meat, a wide variety of vegetables may be incorporated, and they may be more or less heavily spiced and seasoned.

Examples

Two 18th-century English dishes from The Compleat Housewife

The Compleat Housewife

The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion, written by Eliza Smith and originally published in London, England, in 1727, is considered the first cookbook ever to be published in the United States...

show some of the varying meats, vegetables, seasonings, garnishes and procedures which can be applied to the ragoût.

A Ragoo for made Dishes

TAKE claret, gravy, sweet-herbs, and savoury spice, toss up in it lamb-stones, cock's-combs, boiled, blanched, and sliced, with sliced sweet-meats, oysters, mushrooms, truffles, and murrels

Channa striata

The snakehead murrel, Channa striata, is a species of snakehead fish. It is also known as the common snakehead, chevron snakehead, striped snakehead, haloan, aruan, haruan and dalag...

; thicken these with brown butter; use it when called for.

To make a Ragoo of Pigs-Ears

TAKE a quantity of pigs-ears, and boil them in one half wine and the other water; cut them in small pieces, then brown a little butter, and put them in, and a pretty deal of gravy, two anchovies, an eschalot or two, a little mustard, and some slices of lemon, some salt and nutmeg

Nutmeg

The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia...

: stew all these together, and shake it up thick. Garnish the dish with barberries.