Stew in American badlands (8)

'american badlands' is the definition.
The definition and answer are not the same part of speech.

'stew' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
an anagram of 'stew' is 'west' which is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'wild' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

'in' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?