Irish stew

Irish stew on Flickr by beFOODled.

The morning of our Irish Gastronati, I got up early to make this recipe, which was given to me by my Irish friend at work. I was super-organized and the stew was bubbling away by noon, but then S and I stepped out for an impromptu shopping trip that lasted the whole afternoon. When I came back, the stew had almost dried up and there were pieces of potato stuck on the bottom of the pot. Thankfully all was not lost. I revived it with two full cans of Guinness (thank goodness!) and added fresh carrots and potatoes. The meat completely fell apart as you can see in the photo, but taste-wise it was still delicious and Guinnessy.

Irish stew
(serves six, plus leftovers)

3 pounds of stewing beef cubes
4 slices of bacon, cut into thin strips
5 potatoes, cut into thick slices
3 carrots, chopped on the diagonal
3 onions, thickly sliced
2 cups of stock
2 cans of Guinness
fresh thyme

Fry the bacon in the bottom of a stock pot until crispy. Remove the cooked bacon from the stock pot and set it aside. Pour out most of the bacon fat, leaving about a teaspoon, and add some olive oil. To the same pot, add half of the bacon, potatoes, carrots and onions, and then the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Cover the meat with the remaining vegetables and bacon.

Add the stock and thyme and bring to a boil. Cook for four to six hours at the barest simmer until the meat pulls apart if you want to do it as I did, or simmer for one hour until tender, which is what the recipe recommends ;) Add two cans of Guinness and cook for another hour.

Serve hot with cheese scones and tea biscuits.

Irish Roast Pork with Potato Stuffing

Irish roast pork with potato stuffing on Flickr by beFOODled.

Peanut Butter and Jelly brought this very tasty Irish roast pork with potato stuffing to the Gastronati's Irish night. The recipe is from this website. As with all their dishes, they gave it a nice presentation, this time with apple slices.

PB and J made the following changes: They used shallots as well as white onion, and precooked them with the apples, herbs and butter in a frying pan before adding them to potatoes. They also added a tablespoon of cream cheese to the stuffing, and a little bit of bacon to both the stuffing and the outside of the roast. Lastly, they added more beer than the recipe calls for braising the meat.

The Gastronati turn to auld Irish fare

The Gastronati turn to auld Irish fare by beFOODled on Flickr.

As Ottawa's bus strike entered its sixth week, the members of the Gastronati fortified themselves accordingly with Irish fare, a great cuisine for staving off the cold of a Canadian winter.

I brought a homemade Guinness stew, which I almost messed up but not quite (stay tuned for that story later). S and I also brought a pile of Guinness, some of which Mochi, Squeaky and Calimocho's new chihuahua, developed a liking for (see below). It seems that Guinness is good for you AND your dog, but don't worry, we didn't let her have the whole glass ;)

Peanut Butter and Jelly brought roast pork with potato stuffing, and Squeaky and Calimocho made colcannon, a dish with mashed potatoes and kale, soda bread and cheese scones, and a homemade Irish cream liqueur, which was divine. As the old Irish expression goes to encourage someone to take a second drink, "a bird with one wing can't fly." But with this liqueur, nobody put up much resistance, not even the dogs!