Recipe Weekend: Irish Stew brought to You by Smithwick!'s

Since I know not ALL of you like corned beef, or want to serve it on St Patrick's Day (heathens! LOL), Mom pulled out her Irish Stew recipe and thought it would be a great substitute, and very warm and comforting for those of you still with COLD weather!

So off to the store I went for some Guiness Beer, as we're in the backwoods folks, and that's about all you can find, as far as authentic Irish beer goes, right?

And lo and behold, I find something NEW (and yes, my nails are STILL green from the parade (with minor chipping)- I found the BEST nail polish that LASTS- more on that later in another post):

A 'new' Irish beer! Ok, so it's been made since 1713 (you stickler), but I'd never seen it before and whoa- 2 Irish beers to choose from? Hmmm, should I veer from the Guiness required in the recipe?????

AND then I look closely at the label: "Imported by Guiness".

Lightbulb moment!

It qualifies- happy jig in the beer aisle!

Miss Grace was slightly embarassed- she'll get over it!

Here's the recipe:

Mom's Irish Stew

Ingredients:

2 lbs. Stew meat cut into 1 ½” cubes

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons flour

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Pinch of cajun seasoning pepper

1 medium onion roughly chopped (1 ½ cups)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

6 oz (1 sm can) tomato paste, dissolved in 4 tablespoons water

2 ½ cups Guinness beer (we used Smithwicks, so it came to about 1 bottle and a half)

2 cups largely diced carrots (note- you can swap potato and carrot amounts depending on your family's preference- we tens to make them even)

1 cup largely diced potatoes

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Options:

1/2 red pepper cut into thin strips

1/2 orange pepper cut into thin strips

2 tablespoons of brown sugar- to reduce the bite of the ale, if you prefer

Directions:

1. Cut meat into 1 1/2” cubes, then toss in large zip bag containing the flour, salt, pepper and Cajun spice (less mess and you get better coating, and then you can toss the bag!).  Toss meat about in flour mixture to coat.

2. In large dutch oven pot on stove, cook meat in olive oil high heat in 2 tbsp of the olive oil.  Brown the meat on all sides and remove from the pan.  

3, Reduce the heat to medium and add the remaining olive oil. Add in the onions and crushed garlic (if using red and orange peppers, add here as well), and saute about 5 minutes. Remove and add to meat.

4. Combine tomato paste and beer, mix well. It may look weird if it bubbles up from the foam! Just keep going!

5. Add beer mix to the pan and heat,stirring to dissolve the caramelized meat juices on the pan.  

6. Add meat and onion mixture to the pan and stir. 

7. Add in carrots, potatoes, and thyme. If you want to add the brown sugar, you can add it here, or wait a bit to see how the taste is to you. (We like the stew robust, so we never add it, but friends do, so I included it.) 

8. Stir well, cover and heat on low for about 45 minutes to an hour.

9. You can serve with Irish Bread or cornbread. As we're Southern, we like to serve it over a bit of rice. May not be 'Irish" but it's NOLA Irish! LOL!

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!