Irish beef stew with Guinness stout

I chanced upon a recipe for Irish lamb stew with Guinness stout in the Sunday Times. I intended to cut out the recipe and keep it for reference. However, it slipped my mind and before I knew it, I could no longer find the newspapers.

As I was dwelling over what to cook for dinner on 20 September 2008, Da came home with a recipe for Irish lamb stew with Guinness stout that he found on the internet. The recipe did not look too difficult so I decided to modify the recipe (as I wanted to have more vegetables in the stew) and make this stew for the dinner with the gang.

On Friday (19 September 2008), Da and I went to Cold Storage supermarket after work but could not find any mutton. We found some lamb ribs but I was looking for mutton cubes or anything other than ribs. Yesterday morning, when I went to NTUC, I could not find any lamb at all. Not to worry, the beauty about cooking is the ability to be versatile and to adapt. So, beef to the rescue! I decided to change the dish to a beef stew.

The stew goes well with baked garlic bread.

It would also go well with steamed rice.

Without further ado, here is the recipe..... (actually, that is all you wanted to know, right? I have babbled on for far too long above.... a thousand apologies!).

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
450g beef cubes
1 onion (roughly chopped)
2 cloves garlic
1 bottle Guinness stout
beef stock
1 tbsp rosemary (chopped)
1 tbsp thyme (chopped)
1 bay leaf
salt
black pepper / peppercorn medley
white pepper
Worcestershire sauce
2 potatoes (cut into bite size pieces)
4 carrots (cut into bite size pieces)
2 stalks celery (cut into bite size pieces)
1/2 can button mushrooms (whole)
2 tomatoes (quartered)
corn flour (mix into paste with plain water)
1 handful parsley (chopped)

Method

1. Marinate the beef cubes with the oil, onion, garlic, Guinness stout, beef stock, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, salt, black pepper / peppercorn medley, white pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Leave the mixture in the refrigerator overnight.

2. In a large pot, cook the marinated beef cubes with the marinade and bring to a boil.

3. Add the potatoes, carrots, celery, button mushrooms and tomato and bring to a boil.

4. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 3 hours or until the beef is tender.

5. Mix the corn flour with some plain water and add it to the stew to thicken it.

6. Add more Worcestershire sauce, salt, black pepper / peppercorn medley and white pepper to taste.

7. Ladle the stew onto a plate / bowl and garnish with parsley.

Tips

1. If you do not eat beef or are not fond of beef, you can replace the beef with any other red meat. However, as this is intended to be an Irish stew, beef or lamb would be more ideal.

2. You can replace the beef stock with any other meat stock.

3. You can use dried rosemary, thyme and parsley although fresh herbs would bring out the flavour better.

4. If you do not have an AMC pot, any deep pot will do. However, be sure to stir the stew often to prevent the bottom of the stew from sticking to the pot.