Irish Stew
8 servings
180 minutes
Irish stew is the embodiment of warmth and comfort in traditional Irish cuisine. It historically originated among simple farmers using available ingredients to create a hearty and flavorful dish. Veal marinated in dark beer with vegetables and thyme gains incredible depth of flavor. Slow simmering in a mixture of beer and tomatoes creates a rich, thick sauce that permeates every ingredient. Baked potatoes and green peas add textural contrast, while the slight spiciness of daikon radish brings an unexpected accent. This dish is the perfect blend of rustic simplicity and exquisite flavor balance.
1
Marinate cubed veal with beer, carrots, celery, and onion. Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of ground pepper, and 3-4 sprigs of thyme per kilo of meat. Marinate the meat for two days in the refrigerator at +1 — maximum +4 degrees.
- Veal: 1 kg
- Carrot: 100 g
- Onion: 200 g
- Celery stalk: 100 g
- Thyme: 4 stems
- Salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
- Dark beer: 1.5 l
2
After two days, drain the marinade and blend it. Sear the meat in a mixture of vegetable and butter until crispy. It should look cooked but remain raw inside. Fry in small batches to avoid excess liquid. The meat should be fried, not boiled.
- Vegetable oil: 50 ml
- Butter: 100 g
3
Next, transfer the meat (if it was fried in a pan) to a large pot, add canned tomatoes (200 g per kilo of meat), a liter of dark beer, and simmer for two hours on the lowest heat. After that, add the blended marinade, the flour fried in butter for thickening the sauce (50 g of butter per tablespoon of flour), the baked potatoes cut into small cubes (bake the potatoes with vegetable oil, thyme, and salt), green peas, and the diced and lightly boiled daikon radish or turnip. Of course, you can simmer all these vegetables raw with the meat. But it's better to add them at the last moment when they are already cooked. This creates a tension of flavors, and the potatoes in the stew will have the taste of complexly prepared potatoes, not the same taste as the meat.
- Pelati tomatoes: 200 g
- Dark beer: 1.5 l
- Vegetable oil: 50 ml
- Wheat flour: 1 tablespoon
- Potato: 500 g
- Green peas: 500 g
- Daikon: 500 g
- Thyme: 4 stems
- Salt: to taste
4
After all the vegetables are added, along with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to taste, simmer the stew for about five minutes and serve. If done correctly, it creates the effect mentioned in social advertising in the Moscow metro: 'The city is a unity of dissimilarities.'
- Salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
- Parsley: to taste