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Irish Stew
4 lbs. mutton neck. 5 large onions. 2 lbs. potatoes. 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley Salt and pepper to taste Water to cover Cut the meat into neat pieces, put it into a large casserole; add the onions sliced, and enough water to cover.
Simmer for two hours; season with salt and pepper.
Add the potatoes sliced rather thinly.
Cover closely, and continue to simmer for another hour.
Sprinkle in the parsley just before serving.
The ingredient list has come down to us incomplete — only the parsley, seasoning and water survive in the header — but the method is intact and the proportions are standard. Assume roughly 2 lb of meat, 1 lb of onions and 2 lb of potatoes.
- What "casserole" means hereIn a book of this vintage the casserole is the vessel — a lidded earthenware or fireproof china pot used on the stovetop as often as in the oven. The instruction to "simmer" means direct heat, gently, on the burner. A Dutch oven or any heavy lidded pot does the same work.
- The meatIrish stew is traditionally mutton or lamb, and the cut wanted is a bony, gelatinous one: neck, shoulder or scrag. Mutton is scarce now; lamb shoulder or neck fillet gives the closest result. Lean leg meat will go dry over three hours.
- Total cooking timeThree hours of simmering is not an error for tough mutton on a coal range, but modern lamb shoulder is tender in half that. Ninety minutes before the potatoes go in is usually enough; test with a fork rather than the clock.
- Two stages of potatoThe recipe adds all the potatoes at the end, sliced thin. Many cooks prefer to split them: some in early to collapse and thicken the liquor, the rest later to hold their shape. The recipe as written gives a thinner broth.
- No browning, no flourNothing is seared and nothing is thickened. That is correct for the dish — Irish stew is pale by definition, its body coming from potato starch and the gelatin in the bones. Resist the urge to brown the meat first if you want the authentic result.
- Salt timingSeasoning is held back to the two-hour mark, which suits a long reduction. Taste again after the potatoes have gone in, since they absorb a good deal of salt.
- SkimmingThe original assumes a cook standing by. Skim the grey foam and surface fat during the first twenty minutes, or the finished broth will be cloudy and greasy.
- YieldOn the quantities above, four generous servings. Serve in deep bowls with the liquor, not drained.
Irish stew appears in English and Irish cookery writing from the early nineteenth century onward, and it is usually characterised by its austerity: mutton, onions, potatoes, water. The arguments about whether carrots or barley belong in it are largely later ones. The early twentieth century did see a vogue for fireproof earthenware and china cookware sold as both cooking pot and serving dish, promising fuel economy and less washing up, and slow-simmered one-pot meats suited such wares well. A three-hour simmer of this kind suits mature mutton, tougher and stronger-flavoured than the young lamb that became more usual in British and Irish butchers over the following decades.