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Irish Stew No. 1
12 potatoes 6 large onions 1 carrot 2 ounces butter A little parsley Pepper and salt to taste Cut up the potatoes in one-inch squares; scald, and cut up the onions, chop the carrot and parsley. Boil all together in a pint of water until the vegetables are cooked, but not pulped. Add the seasoning and butter fifteen minutes before serving.
A frugal all-vegetable version of Irish stew: potatoes and onions do the work, and the pint of water is meant to reduce into a starchy gravy rather than cover the pot. Read it as a tightly lidded braise, not a soup.
- The hinge: barely any waterA pint of water under twelve potatoes is not a mistake, but it only works in a heavy pot with a well-fitting lid over low heat, so the vegetables steam in their own moisture. Check it once or twice and add a splash if the bottom looks dry; the potatoes will scorch before they cook if left uncovered.
- "Scald" the onionsHere it most likely means dropping the peeled onions into boiling water for a minute or two before slicing, an old step to soften their bite. Slow cooking sweetens them anyway; the step can be skipped without harm.
- Potato choiceCut in one-inch squares, a floury potato (russet, Maris Piper, King Edward) will break down at the edges and thicken the liquid, which is what gives the stew body. A waxy potato holds its cubes and leaves you with watery broth.
- "Cooked, but not pulped"That is the doneness cue: roughly 25 to 35 minutes at a bare simmer. A fork should meet no resistance while the cubes still hold shape.
- Butter and seasoning lastTwo ounces is four tablespoons, stirred in fifteen minutes before serving so it enriches the starchy liquid rather than separating into a slick. Salt goes in at the same point, as the recipe directs.
- Quantities and yieldSix large onions to twelve potatoes is a very high onion ratio by modern taste; halving the onions still leaves plenty of sweetness. As written it should feed six to eight as a main.
- ParsleyChopped in at the start it will cook to nothing. Reserve half and add it with the butter for colour and a fresh note.
Meatless cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of them tied to vegetarian societies, food-reform movements or wartime economy campaigns, made a habit of borrowing the names of famous meat dishes and rebuilding them from vegetables. Traditional Irish stew was largely potato and onion, with mutton stretched thin, and country versions with little or no meat were common enough in hard years. What the mutton supplied was fat and savour, and this recipe replaces it with two ounces of butter added at the end, the same trick that carries plain potato soups and colcannon. The "No. 1" suggests the book carried at least one more version of the dish.