Tyler Wright | Special to the 51暗网
With St. Patrick's Day around the corner I thought it would be fitting to cook an Irish-inspired dish for the upcoming festivities. This year enjoy your green beer with a hot bowl of homemade Irish stew.
I like this particular recipe because you build the entire stew in one pot from start to finish. This method layers the flavours of each ingredient as well as maximizing the overall flavour profile of the stew. The result, a darn good stew that was given a thumbs-up approval via picture by a friend from Dublin, Ireland.
This recipe is not too complex and only took about two hours start to finish.
Start by preparing you vegetables. Dice four medium-size Yukon gold potatoes into cubes. Dice four stalks of celery, one jumbo carrot, one parsnip, one large yellow onion and three garlic cloves. Set aside.
In a larger soup pot, brown diced bacon. Cook the bacon at a higher temp to start, then reduce the heat and continue rendering the bacon. Rendering will extract all the bacon grease out. I used one full package of thick-cut bacon. Don鈥檛 strain the bacon fat. We are going to use this as the base to get our stew going. Once the bacon has rendered for about 15 minutes, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. For the stew meat, I chose an inside round roast. Cut the roast against the grain into cube-size pieces and toss in flour. Lightly brown the beef cubes in the pot with the bacon fat. Make sure to not overcrowd the cubes as you cook them and remove without fully cooking. Place on a plate with the bacon. By browning the beef cubes they will stay tender and not become chewy and tough when cooked later in the stew.
By now you should start to see a crust on the bottom of the pot. This is all the goodness that we are going to be incorporating into the stew through the process of deglazing. It鈥檚 worth its weight in gold and will add so much flavour to the stew.
Add the diced onion and garlic to our pot and saut茅 for about 10 minutes on medium heat. In a separate pot, bring two cups of water and one can of beef broth to a boil. Add one can of tomato paste and one beef bouillon cube to the mixture along with a tablespoon of rosemary and thyme. This is going to be our broth. Oh yeah, did I mention the stout beer? We will be adding two cans of Irish stout to the stew. This will help bulk up our broth and also deglaze all that flavour now on the bottom of the pot.
Once the onions and garlic are translucent, add the prepared veggies into the pot. Have the temp set to medium-high heat, then take the beer and slowly start adding to the pot. Make sure to stir during this process with a spatula or wooden spoon. You will see all that built-up food baked onto the bottom of the pot lift and incorporate into the stew. Add the bacon and beef cubes and keep at a rolling boil for about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and let it reduce while covered. Reduce until it reaches your desired thickness. You can also add a small amount of a cornstarch slurry to thicken it up quicker. Serve with a fresh dinner roll and enjoy.
For the full recipe card and pics, visit and on Instagram.
