Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Proper Irish Stew

  • 23-01-2008 4:39pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16


    Hi can anyone give me a plain simple receipe for proper irish stew?
    (I can trade with a plain simple receipe for proper italian pizza..)
    ;)
    Thanks


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,722 ✭✭✭ibh


    stew recipe (it's beef stew as i prefer it to lamb)

    steak pieces
    onion
    carrots
    potatoes
    stock which can be either home made or from a stock cube'
    garlic

    method
    chop onion finely
    fry till golden along with clove of garlic.lift out on to a plate. meant to say that i use olive oil to fry off.
    add some more oil & fry off the meat turning so that its golden both sides.
    lift out meat to a plate & to the pan add some stock thicken with flour so that you now have the juice for the stew.
    peel the spuds & carrots
    add all the ingreds into a saucepan or casserole dish & cook for about hour and half. dont forget salt & pepper.

    remember to cook gently, as a STEW BOILED IS A STEW SPOILED.
    put all the ingredients into a saucepan or casserole dish.

    easy!!

    Now lets see that pizza recipie..!


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,911 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    Recipe is fine but if the OP is looking for 'proper' Irish stew as in the thread title then youd have to use mutton rather than beef :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    I make mine as a slow-cook dish in the oven. I find using lamb in an irish stew can really dry the meat out, but mutton can be difficult to get. This way the meat stays tender and the whole dish is tasty.

    I use gigot lamb chops, bone-in, if I can get them, or any reasonably fatty lamb chops with the bone still in. Gigot chops are cross cuts of a lamb shoulder. Neck of lamb is fatty enough for this, but I find anything with bone-in makes it far, far sweeter.

    I judge amounts on a serving basis, allowing two gigot chops per person and one for the pot (or two for the pot if I'm serving five people or more, so for four people, I use nine chops).

    I also allow one large onion between two people, three carrots, four potatoes and two sticks of celery. I don't use barley any more - I love it, but jesus it just seems to make everyone fart for two days after eating the stew.

    Assume stew for four people. You'll need nine large chops, two large or three medium onions, eight large potatoes, six carrots, four sticks of celery, about two tablespoons of plain flour, pepper and salt, some stock if you have some and fresh herbs - parsley and thyme are the best with rosemary also excellent.

    You'll need a non-stick pan and a pot that can go in the oven or a casserole dish.

    Season the flour heavily with pepper and salt, and dip each chop in flour. Shake off the excess. In the non stick pan, add a little flavourless oil, and brown the chops one by one, then set aside. There should be a little oil in the pan and some of the juices of the chops - add the remaining flour to this pan and allow it to soak up the juices, then add your stock to it gradually, so it doesn't go lumpy, and allow your stock to heat while you do the rest of the preparation. If you have lamb stock, excellent, use the lamb stock. If you don't have lamb stock, my personal preference would be to use vegetable stock, or half chicken stock and half water, but I wouldn't use beef stock because I find it too strongly flavoured and think it drowns out the lamb flavour.

    Prepare the vegetables - the onions should be in large chunks, the carrots in rounds and the celery in slices. With the potatoes, peel them and then slice them into rounds around a half an inch thick.

    Now the construction - on the bottom of the dish for the oven, layer three chops. Then cover the chops with a mixture of the chopped onion, carrot rounds and celery pieces. Now layer the sliced potatoes over the other vegetables. Season the potatoes well with pepper and salt. Now add some herbs - I like to layer a couple of sprigs of parsley, sprigs of thyme and two stalks of rosemary. Now start layering again - three more chops, more veg, more potatoes, seasoning, more herbs, and then the last layer of three chops and veg and potatoes and seasoning. Then top with herbs.

    (It's worth noting that some people don't fancy pulling thyme stalks out of their dinner, so if you want, prechop the herbs and add them in chopped handfuls bewteen the layers, but make sure you don't chop up any woody bits.)

    I then pour the hot stock over the layers until I'm just at the level of the top layer of potatoes - not quite covering them, but not shy of them.

    Then put a lid on the pot and put it in the oven at around 160 degrees for a couple of hours. You want this to cook long and slow, so depending on your own oven you may even reduce the heat further. I usually cook mine on gas mark three for two hours in a le creuset pot, so the cast iron of the pot affects the cooking time too.

    The resulting stew will be thick and delicious, the meat will still be tender and juicy. The whole thing will be bloody hot though, so be prepared to ladle it out into bowls and sit there salivating over it and waiting for it to cool for ten frustrating minutes. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,625 ✭✭✭✭BaZmO*


    MAJD, that recipe sounds absolutely delish and I might actually give it a bash but it does sounds quite cheffy. I've never heard of lamb chops in a stew before. Do many other people do this?

    My mother and her mother before and her mother....you get the picture.....always used beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, parsley and and stock all in a pot and simmer for a few hours. And tbh, that's the way anybody else I know does it too (with maybe slight variations, barley, mince etc.)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,313 ✭✭✭Mr.Boots


    Electric slow cookers are great fro doing stew......very very slowly;)


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    BaZmO* wrote: »
    MAJD, that recipe sounds absolutely delish and I might actually give it a bash but it does sounds quite cheffy. I've never heard of lamb chops in a stew before. Do many other people do this?

    My mother and her mother before and her mother....you get the picture.....always used beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, parsley and and stock all in a pot and simmer for a few hours. And tbh, that's the way anybody else I know does it too (with maybe slight variations, barley, mince etc.)

    BazMo, I don't know what you're getting at tbh.

    First, beef stew isn't Irish stew. Irish stew is a sheep-based stew - so lamb or hogget or mutton.

    Second, boiling meat on the hob for a few hours is a surefire way to make it tough as boot leather. If you want to turn tough cuts tender, never let them boil. Keep the cooking low and slow. My recipe has lamb instead of beef, but has potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, parsley - all the ingredients you've indicated.

    And I'm not talking about using lamb cutlets:

    1174388137lamb%20cutlets.jpg

    I'm talking about something like lamb forequarter chops:

    23281209.jpg

    They're a different cut of meat. It's like using shin of beef in a stew - just because it's a large, red piece of beef, that doesn't make it a steak. Just beause forequarter or gigot chops have the word 'chop' in the title, that doesn't mean they're exclusively for the grill.

    If you try making an Irish stew the way I've described it, you'll never go back to the "boil the bejesus out of it on the hob for hours" method again.

    PS: Apologies for the ginormous graphic of lamb cutlets, but I can't find a small image.


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,625 ✭✭✭✭BaZmO*


    BazMo, I don't know what you're getting at tbh.
    I wasn't having a go, I was just genuinely curious about lamb being used in a Stew.
    I suppose I'm just so used to having beef for eons that I just thought it was the norm. (but no one uses it, preferring beef)
    Just done a straw poll in work and yeah apparently lamb is the traditional way.

    Second, boiling meat on the hob for a few hours is a surefire way to make it tough as boot leather. If you want to turn tough cuts tender, never let them boil.
    I never said boil though.

    And I'm not talking about using lamb cutlets:
    Ah I know the difference alright, but having said that, my ignorance with regards to a Lamb Stew would suggest otherwise!! :D

    If you try making an Irish stew the way I've described it, you'll never go back to the "boil the bejesus out of it on the hob for hours" method again.
    I dunno, I will try it your way but it'd take an AWFUL lot to beat my mother's Stew! (She doesn't boil it either!! ;) )


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭noby


    Lamb may be the tradition, but it's basically a cheap cut of meat, spuds and veg cooked in a pot. I think it's the kind of dish that's difficult to make hard and fast rules about; there's probably a million and one regional (even family) variations.

    For what it's worth, we always used beef here.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    noby wrote: »
    Lamb may be the tradition, but it's basically a cheap cut of meat, spuds and veg cooked in a pot. I think it's the kind of dish that's difficult to make hard and fast rules about; there's probably a million and one regional (even family) variations.

    For what it's worth, we always used beef here.

    I'm going to make a stand on this one, partly because of the other thread that was on here about traditional Irish cooking where many posters responded with "Eh, not much. Dunno." There is actually a great tradition of a lot of extremely enjoyable Irish dishes, and it needs to be celebrated.

    Traditional Irish Stew is a sheep-based stew, and no other meat. Saying otherwise is like saying you're making traditional chicken chow mein but you use spaghetti instead of noodles.

    Beef stew is a completely different dish - when we had simple beef stew at home it was melting chunks of beef in a rich, thick, brown gravy with potatoes and carrots. (I must try making it again soon actually, I haven't made a beef stew without the addition of stocks, wines, ports, guinness or something else to the liquid in years.)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,688 ✭✭✭kerash


    I'm going to make a stand on this one, partly because of the other thread that was on here about traditional Irish cooking where many posters responded with "Eh, not much. Dunno." There is actually a great tradition of a lot of extremely enjoyable Irish dishes, and it needs to be celebrated.

    Traditional Irish Stew is a sheep-based stew, and no other meat. Saying otherwise is like saying you're making traditional chicken chow mein but you use spaghetti instead of noodles.

    Beef stew is a completely different dish - when we had simple beef stew at home it was melting chunks of beef in a rich, thick, brown gravy with potatoes and carrots. (I must try making it again soon actually, I haven't made a beef stew without the addition of stocks, wines, ports, guinness or something else to the liquid in years.)

    Ah, dont be getting in a stew about it!!!!:D
    Seriously tho, those are some good recipies there, and lamb is traditional and has a different flavour to the old beef stew, it's nice for a chang sometime,anyway i usually throw all lamb, spuds, carrot, onion, stock cube water into a pot, stew for couple of hrs on hob and hope for d best!!


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,911 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    kerash wrote: »
    Ah, dont be getting in a stew about it!!!!:D
    Seriously tho, those are some good recipies there, and lamb is traditional...

    As much as Minesajackdaniels doesn't like people referring to Irish Stew with 'beef' in it, I feel the same way about lamb.

    Lamb is a 'new' meat to these isles, becoming very popular in the 1980's.

    I have no problem with using it in a stew but while it may seem anal, a traditional Irish Stew is made of mutton, not lamb.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,688 ✭✭✭kerash


    Lamb only came to Ireland in the 1980's?:D

    mayb it's mutton dressed as Lamb!!

    which came first, the mutton or the Lamb?

    Ah sure you might as well be hung for a sheep as a Lamb!!!;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,314 ✭✭✭Talliesin


    kerash wrote: »
    Lamb only came to Ireland in the 1980's?:D
    So much for the suggested etymology of Imbolg being "Ewe's milk"!


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    Ponster wrote: »
    I have no problem with using it in a stew but while it may seem anal, a traditional Irish Stew is made of mutton, not lamb.

    Good point. Saying that, do you find mutton is easy to get in Ireland from the supermarket? Genuine question - I know I can get it down here easily enough but in Ireland it seems as though they try to pass mutton off as lamb (no pun :) )


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭noby


    MAJD, I understand what you're saying, and lamb (or mutton) has become the meat of choice when making "Traditional Irish Stew", but back through the generations familys made a stew from cheap cuts of meat. A lot of these families used, and still use, beef. This mightn't conform with current recipes, but this was a time of cooking what your mother cooked.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 267 ✭✭C Fodder


    Traditional Irish stew is a watery boiled stew almost soup based on mutton, carrots, onions and potatoes, a thick brown stew based on beef or lamb cooked with whatever veg was available in a pot over an open fire, a casserole dish of beef or lamb pieces cooked with onions and covered with layers of potato. In other words there are as many recipies as there as many grannies in Ireland that have always their Irish stew this way. I know of a few families from one area where the traditional stew uses bacon as its main base. The convention of using only lamb (originally mutton) in Irish stew came from english cookbooks attempting to differentiate between different types of single pot stews.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,911 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    kerash wrote: »
    Lamb only came to Ireland in the 1980's?:D

    Up until recent times lamb wasn't used all that much in stews with mutton being the prefered meat (cheaper and more suited to stewing I guess). In the 80's New Zealand pumped a lot of money into ads in Ireland/UK to encourage us to buy their lamb and since it's become harder to find mutton with so much cheapish lamb around. This was the second wave of NZ ads (the first appearing in newspapers in the 1960s).


    > Good point. Saying that, do you find mutton is easy to get in Ireland from the supermarket?

    No idea but in France you can find it almost everywhere. In fact it's not all that easy to get cheap cuts of lamb for stewing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭noby


    I wonder, does mutton have a certain stigma attached to it now in Ireland? A kind of mutton=cheap thing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,774 ✭✭✭Minder


    I agree with MAJD - Irish Stew is made with sheep, not beef. Champ is made with spuds, not sweet potatoes, coddle is made with pork, not goat - these are the recipes that are easily identified as being irish and we should be protective of them and their origins.

    Irish stew - barley, or no barley; that's an argument worth having, but lamb (sheep) vs beef? Find me a recipe on the internet for Traditional Irish Stew that uses beef.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 12,108 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dizzyblonde


    noby wrote: »
    I wonder, does mutton have a certain stigma attached to it now in Ireland? A kind of mutton=cheap thing.


    Even when I was a child, mutton had a stigma attached to it - it was seen as 'poor people's meat'. I believe it's also very tough.
    Irish Stew in our house was always made with beef, and I use beef. Originally it was a lamb dish though.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭noby


    Minder wrote: »
    Find me a recipe on the internet for Traditional Irish Stew that uses beef.

    You see, that's the difference. I'm agreeing that published recipe's for Traditional Irish Stew(™) call for sheep of some sort.
    Whereas my nan never got to post her recipe on the internet for Irish stew.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,911 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    noby wrote: »
    I wonder, does mutton have a certain stigma attached to it now in Ireland? A kind of mutton=cheap thing.

    Yep, I'm 99% sure that this is the case. "Why buy mutton when you can afford lamb"? was asked once of me in a bar in Carlow.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭noby


    Mutton is a little tougher, which, I guess, makes it ideal for stewing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,625 ✭✭✭✭BaZmO*


    Minder wrote: »
    Find me a recipe on the internet for Traditional Irish Stew that uses beef.
    But that's the thing, when does something become "Traditional" after 5 years? 10 years? 100 years?

    And also, I wouldn't use the internet as the gospel truth when it came to anything.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,774 ✭✭✭Minder


    noby wrote: »
    You see, that's the difference. I'm agreeing that published recipe's for Traditional Irish Stew(™) call for sheep of some sort.
    Whereas my nan never got to post her recipe on the internet for Irish stew.

    She may also make Duck A L'orange with chicken, but it doesn't make it so.:D


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,774 ✭✭✭Minder


    BaZmO* wrote: »
    But that's the thing, when does something become "Traditional" after 5 years? 10 years? 100 years?

    I doubt that the origins of Irish Stew as a peasant food included the use of beef. Sheep and goats are cheaper to buy and keep.
    BaZmO* wrote: »
    And also, I wouldn't use the internet as the gospel truth when it came to anything.

    I used the internet because it is easy to demonstrate the point - published Irish Stew recipes use sheep.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,207 ✭✭✭meditraitor


    Im of the same view as some of the less-Irish stew educated folks, we always had beef in the stew(the ma didnt call it Irish Stew, just stew).
    Actually the first time I tasted stew with lamb/mutton/arse in it I was in vancouver and questioned the ingredients then.
    It seems lamb is the ingredient that is most associated with IRISH stew but in ours(gaff) beef was alway and will always be the meat for STEW.

    :D


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,911 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    Hmmm, asking when 'traditionally'is isn't that easy a question but I'd say that Mrs Beeton's Irish Stew recipe which calls for "Loin or Neck of Mutton" is probably 'traditional'.

    Irish Stew isn't supposed to be a fancy dish and as with most 'plain' dishes it uses the cheapest cuts of meat, allowed to cook until juicy and tender. The French version 'traditionally' uses beef cheeks but you can bey your life that few bother with that cut even though it's still available. why would you put beef cheeks in a stew when you can afford steak? I can understand the thought process but IMHO it can sometimes be a waste of a good cut to have it simmering in water for a couple of hours :)

    So I guess that if your grandmother made it with beef and her mother before her then maybe you came from a more well-off family than those that had to do with mutton? :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,688 ✭✭✭kerash


    To be honest, if someone said they made me stew, i'd assume it was beef, but if they said they made Irish stew, i'd assume lamb/mutton something sheep derived anyway!!

    I'd also automatically assume it had be "stewed" on a top of hob/aga etc not in an oven...

    If they said casserole, i'd think it's been cooked in an oven!!

    the point is, i think everyone's idea of a stew seems to be different, depending on what they have been brought up on or their personal preference etc.


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 12,108 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dizzyblonde


    kerash wrote: »
    the point is, i think everyone's idea of a stew seems to be different, depending on what they have been brought up on or their personal preference etc.


    Very true. My grandmother always said that the two things you never eat in anyone else's house are stew and Christmas pudding because they can vary so much from one family to another. What's delicious to one person can be revolting to someone else! :eek:


Advertisement