Irish Stout Stew

Irish Stout Beef Stew

3-4 lbs of beef cut into 1’ cubes
4 onions (large dice)
4 Carrots (small pieces)
2 lbs of small white potatoes (cut in half)
1 baker potato (grated)
1 can tomato paste
1 liter beef stock
500 ml stout
3 bay leaves

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. This is the perfect temperature to simmer liquid in the oven.

Start by cutting your meat into 1 inch cubes. This should be a cut of meat with lots of connective tissue. This will break down and give body and flavour to your stew. Use a cut of meat that gets used a lot. The more a muscle is used, the more connective tissue, and the more flavourful. I used an outside roast, but chuck would work even better. Also, take some time to dry all pieces, as this will help in the browning process later.

 Prep your vegetables. Make sure to cut all vegetables into uniform pieces, about 1 inch thick.

Heat a Dutch oven with about ¼ - ½ inch of veg oil in it on the stove top on medium high heat. This will look like a lot of oil, but you will be draining it off later. Once your oil is hot put in one, uncrowded layer of beef. Do not put too much beef in the pot because it will not caramelize effectively, it will just steam and that will make for unflavourful and tough beef. You will have to brown the beef in batches. Once a layer of beef is browned on all sides, you can remove it from the pot, put it into a bowl and cook another batch. Take time to really brown each side of each piece of beef. This will give immense flavour to your stew.

Once you have browned and removed all of your beef, drain most, but not all, of your oil.  There should be lots of brown bits in the bottom of your pot. This is where all of the hidden flavour for your stew is  so don’t get rid of it!

Put the onions into the Dutch oven with a sprinkle of salt, cook until soft. The onions will pick up lots of the brown color and flavour from the leftover beef bits. Once the onion is softened and starting to brown, put in the can of tomato paste and cook for a minute or two to enhance the flavour.

Pour the beer and beef stock into the pot. The beer should be a good thick stout. Lagers and ales will not work here because they just don’t have the intense flavour to stand up to the big flavour of the beef. Guiness is ok, but something even darker and more stout-y should be used here. I used  O’Hara’s Irish Stout because it is very dark and full of flavour.

Grate the russet potato into the stew using a box grater. The potato will melt into the stew over the cooking process and the starch from the potato  will take the place of corn starch or flour to thicken the stew. Add the carrots, potatoes, and bay leaves to the stew.  Stir to combine and cover and put the stew into the oven and cook for 3 or 4 hours.