Beef and stout stew

Ingredients

• Beef chuck — in large pieces1.5 kg
• Stout500 ml
• Flour60 g
• Onions3
• Carrots4
• Potatoes700 g
• Parsnips2
• Tomato paste2 tbsp
• Beef stock400 ml
• Thyme4 sprig
• Bay leaves2
• Honey1 tbsp
• Vegetable oil50 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Pat the beef dry, season it and dust it with flour on all sides.

   12 min

2. 2

   Brown the meat in batches in hot oil to a dark crust and lift it out.

   20 min

3. 3

   Soften the onion in the same fat, add the tomato paste and cook it three minutes.

   12 min

4. 4

   Pour in the stout, bring it up and scrape everything caught on the bottom; that is where the flavour is.

   8 min

5. 5

   Return the meat, add the stock, thyme and bay and braise covered at 160 °C for two hours.

   125 min

6. 6

   Add the carrot, parsnip and potato and braise forty-five minutes more.

   47 min

7. 7

   Stir in the honey, taste for the balance against the bitterness and serve with soda bread.

   8 min

About the dish

Stout brings bitterness as well as flavour, and it has to be balanced. A spoon of sugar or honey at the end is not sweetening but a necessary correction.

The beef is browned in batches and always to a dark crust. The Maillard reaction is the only source of depth here: the beer on its own gives bitterness, not meatiness.

The sauce is thickened by the flour the meat was dusted with rather than by a slurry at the end. That way the flour cooks out and leaves no raw taste.

Worth knowing

• — Use stout rather than lager. A pale beer brings acidity instead of bitterness and the flavour goes elsewhere entirely.
• — The vegetables go in late. Over three hours they collapse into purée and the stew becomes a thick soup.
• — The stew is better on the second day. The fat lifts off cold and the flavour comes out cleaner and deeper.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

52 g

Fat

30 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Ireland

• Irish stew — Lamb with potato and onion, stewed without browning. The meat is never seared, and that is the whole point.
• Soda bread — Bread on bicarbonate and buttermilk, with no yeast and no proving. Three minutes from mixing to oven.
• Colcannon — Mashed potato with cabbage and spring onion, a lake of melted butter in the centre.