Irish Beef Stew

Ingredients (serves 6):

1kg Braising/Skirt steak, cut into 1 inch cubes        1 litre beef stock, using stock cubes

1kg potatoes, peeled & sliced                                  300ml stout

1 white onion, chopped                                            1 tbsp. Rapeseed oil

1 leek, chopped                                                        75g salted butter

4 large carrots/ 5 small approx. 500g                       sea salt & black pepper

1 large parsnip, approx. 300g, peeled & cubed

Method:

1. Preheat the oven 200⁰C/180⁰C fan/ gas mark 6.

2. Put a large frying pan on a medium-high heat, add the oil and the chopped beef chunks and brown them. This may have to be done in batches so the pan isn’t over-filled. Put the beef into a large oven proof dish.

3. Whilst the beef is frying, peel and chop the veg.

4. Fry all the veg in the same frying pan for five minutes or so until the onion softens. Add the veg to the beef and give it a good mix. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Make a beef stock and pour over the meat and veg. Add the stout and give it a mix.

6. Peel and slice the potatoes roughly ½ cm thick and layer over the top of the stew. Add a knob of butter to the top of each of the potatoes on the top layer. Cover the dish in foil and bake for 1 ½ hours. Afterwards, remove the foil and bake for a further 15 mins until the potatoes are crisp and golden-brown.

Toms Top Tips:

I recommend this dish be served in deep bowls with a buttered crusty roll for dunking. If you have a slow cooker you can follow all the method but keep adding it to the slow cooker, then you can cook it for however long you fancy. The longer the better in my opinion. The sauce should thicken slightly from the starch in the potatoes but if you prefer thick gravy make a cheat roux from corn flour and cold water and stir it into the stew.  Roughly 1tsp. cornflour to 50ml water, the heat from the stew will activate the corn starch and start the thickening.