Time To Get Stewed!

Winter warmers - a delicious recipe for homemade stew

Irish Stew



Alan Rosenthal



Alan Rosenthal is a man after my own heart. He quit his job in DVD product management after a eureka moment on the train to work - there and then deciding he would fulfil his passion for food and cook stew for a living. The gamble paid off and the 33-year-old set up his company Stewed! just a short while later. Stewed! Pots are now available in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Budgens, John Lewis’ food hall and Ocado. And Alan, who has just released his first book, is helping to give old-fashioned dishes a new twist by adding imagination ingredient combinations. He has come up with over 80 one-pot recipes from around the world, including prawn and chicken jambalaya, Brazilian black bean chorizo and pork stew, beef in barolo, and of course Irish stew. So if you’re a stew-lover or just fancy a dishy to warm up the evenings, why not try his easy to make recipe below…

 

Irish Stew

Serves 4-6

Alan says: “A stew cookbook really couldn’t exist without a good old Irish stew. The following recipe certainly isn’t the only way to make this grandfather of stews, in fact there are countless variations. I’ve chosen to use lamb but some people prefer beef, some add turnips and parsnips, I’ve just gone for carrots and potatoes. Some cook it in the oven, layered like a Lancashire hotpot, but I like it on the hob just as my mum did it when I was a kid – and here it is.

Ingredients

1.2kg middle neck lamb chops, trim off as much fat as possible and reserve

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

4 tbsp pearl barley

2 onions, sliced

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

3 carrots, roughly chopped (keep them chunky)

500g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into roast potato-sized chunks

To serve:

Chopped fresh parsley

Heat a few of the fat trimmings from the lamb in a large non-stick frying pan. Once they’ve melted, season the chops with salt and black pepper, brown them on both sides for 2–3 minutes in batches, then transfer them to a deep, heavy based pan.

Once all the chops have been browned, cover them with cold water in the deep pan. Pop in the bay leaves and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently, skimming off any fat and scum that rises to the top using a metal spoon.

After 30 minutes, in a separate small saucepan, cover the barley with col

d water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, drain and rinse in cold water before adding to the simmering lamb.

Once the lamb has been cooking for a total of 1.5 hours, add the onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, a few generous pinches of salt and some grinds of black pepper.

Cook for a further 30 minutes before tasting for seasoning. At this point I like to crush a few of the potatoes into the liquid to thicken it slightly. Serve in big bowls sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Stewed! 80 Irresistible Stews and One-Pot Wonders is published by Ebury Press.