Irish cuisine
Irish stew
Lamb with potato and onion, stewed without browning. The meat is never seared, and that is the whole point.
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 150 min
- Total
- 170 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- Lamb neck or shoulder — on the bone, in large pieces1.2 kg
- Floury potatoes — first lot500 g
- Waxy potatoes — second lot700 g
- Onions3
- Carrots3
- Lamb or vegetable stock1.2 l
- Parsley20 g
- 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
Put the meat into the pot raw, add the onion, carrot and the first lot of potatoes cut large.
10 min
- 2
Pour in the stock, bring it to the boil, skim and cook covered for an hour and a half on the lowest heat.
95 min
- 3
Crush the collapsed potato against the side of the pot: the broth thickens and turns milky white.
5 min
- 4
Add the second lot of potatoes in large pieces and cook another forty minutes.
40 min
- 5
Season, and let it stand fifteen minutes. Scatter parsley over before serving.
16 min
About the dish
A classical Irish stew is white. The meat goes in raw, unbrowned, and the broth stays pale. Searing gives a different, heavier flavour — a good one, but no longer this dish.
The potato goes in in two lots. The first collapses entirely and thickens the broth; the second joins half an hour before the end and stays in pieces.
The seasoning is salt, pepper and parsley. No garlic, no herbs, no tomato: the stew grew up in a kitchen that had none of them, and the flavour is built on meat and onion.
Worth knowing
- — Use meat on the bone: the bone gives gelatine, and without it the broth stays watery.
- — It must never boil, not for a minute. A rolling boil clouds the broth and turns the lamb stringy.
- — The stew is markedly better the next day. The fat rises and sets, and lifting it off leaves a cleaner flavour.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 620 kcal
- Protein
- 42 g
- Fat
- 28 g
- Carbs
- 48 g
More from Ireland
- Soda bread — Bread on bicarbonate and buttermilk, with no yeast and no proving. Three minutes from mixing to oven.