Recipe: Irish Beef Stew

Stew.  Stew was a favorite of mine growing up.  Typically we'd make it with venison.  Sometimes I still do, if opportunity presents itself.  But this time, I'm going with beef.  Now this recipe is based off the Guinness Beef Stew recipe from the Irish Cooking Bible.  My parents got it for my husband as a Christmas gift last year.  He unwraps it, turns to me and says "Oooh, look at the new stuff you can cook for me!"  Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Luckily, I particularly enjoy cooking for my husband, so it really was a perfect gift.  Now for this recipe, I highly recommend using a dutch oven.  You could alter the method to cook it without one, but it really is a fantastic item to have.  My favorite thing about it?  It really enables 'one pot meal' cooking.  Let's get started.  

Browning is the result of about a gazillion uses.  I've tried everything to get rid of it, but I've come to accept it.

First I diced up an onion.  I would say this is more like a two onion recipe, but I have only barely begun to eat the things.  Usually this is where I substitute for onion powder, but I discovered recently that as long as they are cooked to the point of no longer having any particular texture, I can eat them.  But seriously, if they aren't melting in my mouth, you won't find them in my recipes.  We've been enemies for a long time, and I don't see us being buddies any time soon.

Anyways, cook them in some oil until they start to soften, and then it's time for meat!

For stews, I typically just buy whatever beef is a low cost that day.  In this case, it was stew meat, cut and ready to go.  Sometimes it's a bigger cut, and I just cube it myself.  Just don't use anything too thin cut.  Hearty bites is the way to go here.

I scooched the onions to the outer edge of the pot, and dropped the meat in to brown.  Once it had some color on it, I de-glazed with beer.  It's Irish stew.  Of course it was Guinness.  I didn't stray THAT far from the original recipe.  In went half of my stock and some water, garlic, marjoram and thyme, and then on went the lid.

You could pop it in the oven at this point, but it's been too hot for me to have an oven running, so I simply reduced it to a low simmer.  I asked my husband to keep half an eye on it, then went to nap for an hour.  What can I say, it was a long work day, and supper was already cooking itself.  I indulged.

Upon waking, feeling much better, I got to work on the potatoes and carrots.  Four large potatoes and four large carrots will yield you a mini mountain of veggies.  

I dumped them in the pot, then added the other half of my stock to cover.  I should probably mention that the way I made it this time yielded more of a broth than a typical thick stew consistency.  You could easily fix this by dusting the meat with some flour before browning, or adding in some starch at this point.  I wasn't all that concerned about it being thick.  The broth was so rich and flavorful, I didn't miss the gravy consistency.  Anyways, once it came back up to a bubble, I reduced the heat to a simmer again, put the lid on, and left it for about half an hour.  The veggies were nice and tender, as was the meat.  Time to dig in.

Yum!  After having the scent wafting through the house for a couple of hours, it was so satisfying to finally chow down.  So far, we've gotten six (probably too) large portions out of it, and there are still leftovers for tomorrow.  The only thing I was missing from this was some crusty bread to sop up the liquids.  There's always next time though!

Irish Beef Stew

2 lbs Beef (approximately), cubed
2 Medium Sweet Onions, diced
1 11 oz Bottle Dark Beer (Guinness suggested)
32 oz Beef Broth, divided
2 cups Water
1.5 tsp Minced Garlic
1/2 tsp Marjoram
1 tsp Thyme
4 Large Potatoes, cubed
4 Large Carrots, cubed

1. In a dutch oven, saute onions on medium to medium high heat until they begin to soften.
2. Push onion to edges of pot, then add beef, browning on all sides.
3. Deglaze with beer.  Add half of beef broth and the water.  Stir in garlic, marjoram, and thyme.  Cover and simmer on low heat for an hour and a half.
4. Add potatoes and carrots.  Add remaining beef broth (and additional water if necessary) to cover vegetables.  Bring up to boil.  Cover and reduce to low heat, simmering for 30 minutes.
5. Stew is done once vegetables are fork tender.  Serve and enjoy!