Ok, first of all: “Irish Stew”, in the traditional sense, is never made with beef and it does not involve Guinness! (See here for a delicious Beef & Guinness Stew.) Traditional Irish Stew is the most simple of dishes, consisting of lamb, vegetables, stock and little more. It’s a perfect example of how good quality ingredients can taste amazing when cooked very simply. Some purists might baulk at the idea of putting carrots and thyme in an Irish stew but that’s my version. Give it a try.
I roasted a shoulder of lamb recently and got it together to make an excellent stock from the bones, which I then put in the freezer for later use. Lamb stock has quite a strong flavour and is not as “all-purpose” as chicken or beef stock; it is generally used only in lamb dishes. The stock is well worth the effort and you can use it as a base for this stew. If you don’t have any, just use light chicken stock.
Serve with some soda bread on the side.
Ingredients
- 12 small lamb chops ( I used loin chops, you could also use an equivalent amount of neck or gigot chops)
- 10 medium sized potatoes, halved
- 4 sticks celery, quartered
- 4 large carrots, washed but unpeeled and quartered
- 1 litre lamb or chicken stock
- 2 tbsp pearl barley
- 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
- salt & freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Trim some of the excess fat from the chops. Melt the fat in a large cast-iron casserole and add the chops. Fry until golden and reserve. Por the fat out of the casserole and de-glaze with some of the stock.
- Place all of the ingredients in the casserole, then top up with water to just cover the meat and veggies. Season with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
- Cover the casserole, bring to a gentle simmer and leave for 1½ - 2 hours. Check the seasoning and add some chopped fresh parsley.
Serves 4.
Leftovers
- If treated right, leftovers can be more impressive than the original meal. To the leftovers of this stew I added 500ml of hot vegetable stock and whizzed with a stick blender. I added some frozen peas, broad beans and some chopped flat-leaf parsley. The results were superb.
This dish is great for Sunday lunch, you have to try it. I use a full litre of stout and gently simmer on the hob for around two and a half hours. The sauce reduces and meat becomes really tender. No stock cubes needed here! Eat with plenty of floury spuds, a cut of bread, or a pint of the black stuff.
Ingredients
- 125g streaky bacon, cubed
- 1kg stewing beef (such as round steak), cubed
- 2 tbsp flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
- 1 litre stout
- 2 onions, sliced
- 3 celery sticks, sliced
- 3 large carrots, washed but unpeeled, cut into large chunks
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (optional)
- 1 tbsp tomato pureé (optional)
- 2 tsp light brown sugar (optional)
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Add a little oil to a frying pan and fry the streaky bacon until golden. Transfer to a large cast-iron casserole or heavy stewpot.
- Brown the beef. Toss the beef in the seasoned flour. Add a little more oil to the frying pan and fry the beef in batches until caramelised. Make sure you do this in batches so as not to overload your pan. Transfer the browned beef to the casserole.
- Add a little more oil and fry the onions until caramelised. Add to the casserole.
- Pour some stout into the hot frying pan to de-glaze it. As the stout bubbles, scrape at the bottom of the pan to remove any caramelised juices from the bacon and the beef. Add the rest of the stout and de-glazed juices to the casserole.
- Now, assemble the rest of the dish. To the casserole, add the celery, carrot, tomato pureé, Worcestershire sauce, stock, herbs, salt and the rest of the stout. Season with plenty of freshly ground pepper. Stir well and place a lid on the casserole but leave a large crack to allow the sauce to reduce. Bring up to a gentle simmer and leave for about 2½ hours (check after 2 hours). Give the casserole a stir every so often to ensure that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the casserole. Taste for seasoning and add a little extra salt if you need.
Notes
- You could use shin beef for this. Just trim a little of the fat from the meat and add at least an hour to the cooking time to allow this tough meat to tenderise. The extra fat in the meat will melt out, giving a rich and unctuous sauce.
Serves 4.
Right, time to take a break from the Indian recipes - this blog is turning more “peshwari naan” than “toasted special”…
Subscribers will know that I’m a rather reluctant baker. I can’t stand shaping sticky dough or pastry so I tend to gravitate towards simple breads and cakes that I can mix and throw into a tin before baking. I like this recipe because there’s no shaping necessary - just mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, combine and pour into a greased loaf tin.
I’ve been making my own brown soda bread for years and have tried countless recipes. This originally started off as a Darina Allen recipe (taken from a GoodFood magazine) but I’ve taken on board Richard Corrigan’s suggestion of adding porridge oats and treacle to give a richer flavour and colour. (Do try Corrigan’s soda bread recipe also, it’s very rich and delicious. Probably more suited to dinner than breakfast as it’s so heavy on the salt and sugar. Great with a creamy potato and leek soup.)
You could also add wheatgerm, extra bran or sunflower seeds to this for a change.
Ingredients
- 225g coarse wholemeal flour
- 225g plain white flour
- 100g porridge oats
- 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1½ tsp sea salt
- 450ml buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil (or 25g butter)
- 1 tbsp treacle
Method
- Pre-heat oven to 200°C.
- Sift the white flour into a large mixing bowl along with the salt and bicarbonate of soda. Add the wholemeal flour and use your hands to give the flour a good mixing.
- Add the egg, sunflower oil (or butter) and treacle to the buttermilk in a measuring jug. Mix well.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix gently and quickly. The dough will be quite wet.
- Transfer to a greased 2lb loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Wrap in a tea-towel (prevents the loaf from drying out) and leave to cool a little before cutting. Coat with butter and serve with a few rashers.
For more (yeast-free) Irish bread recipes, check out my Soda Bread and Griddle Bread posts.
This bread is made in homes all over Ireland. It uses bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent and the buttermilk gives it a subtle tang.
Ingredients
- 450g plain flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 300-350ml buttermilk
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 230°C.
- Sift the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl. Mix well with a fork to ensure the salt and bread soda are well incorporated into the flour.
- Add 300ml of buttermilk and mix through the flour. Add another 50ml if necessary. You want a soft dough, but nothing too wet and sticky.
- With floured hands, turn the dough out onto a floured board. Knead the dough into a round loaf but don’t overwork it.
- Place the dough on a buttered and floured baking sheet. Cut a cross in the top of the dough. According to legend, this allows the fairies to escape. (No, I don’t believe it either…)
- Place the baking sheet in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 200°C and cook for a further 25 minutes.
- Remove the bread from the oven and wrap in a tea towel and leave to cool slightly on a wire rack before cutting. Slice and serve coated with salty butter.
If you want to try another type of traditional Irish bread, try my Griddle Bread recipe. It’s much quicker to make and very moreish.
