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Stew, Irish (INGREDIENTS for dish)
INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons. -3 lbs. of the loin or neck of mutton, 5 lbs. of potatoes, 5 large onions, pepper and salt to taste, rather more than 1 pint of water. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 8d.
Trim off some of the fat of the above quantity of loin or neck of mutton, and cut it into chops of a moderate thickness.
Pare and halve the potatoes, and cut the onions into thick slices. Put a layer of potatoes in the bottom of a stewpan, then a layer of mutton and onions, and season with pepper and salt; proceed in this manner until the stewpan is full, taking care to have plenty of vegetables at the top. Pour in the water, and let it stew very gently for 2½ hours, keeping the lid of the stewpan closely shut the whole time, and occasionally shaking the preparation to prevent its burning.
TIME.-2½ hours.
SEASONABLE. dish.
STEW SOUP. 4 lbs. of potatoes, 4 large onions. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Put the mutton into a stewpan with the water and a little salt, and let it stew gently for an hour; cut the meat into small pieces, skim the fat from the gravy, and pare and slice the potatoes and onions.
Put all the ingredients into the stewpan, in layers, first a layer of vegetables, then one of meat, and sprinkle seasoning of pepper and salt between each layer; cover closely, and let the whole stew very gently for 1 hour, or rather more, shaking it frequently to prevent its burning.
TIME. Rather more than 2 hours.
SEASONABLE.-Suitable for a winter dish.
Note.-Irish stew may be prepared in the same manner as above, but baked in a jar instead of boiled. About 2 hours or rather more in a moderate oven will be sufficient time to bake it.
Two versions of the stew have run together in this entry — the layered raw-meat method and a second one in which the mutton is stewed for an hour first, then cut up and layered with the vegetables. Either works; the first is the classic. A few notes before you start.
- The hinge: keep it barely tremblingEverything depends on "very gently" with the lid closed. The dish cooks in its own steam plus a pint of water; a rolling boil will break up the potatoes into paste and scorch the bottom before the mutton is tender. Lowest possible flame, or a heat diffuser under the pan.
- Mutton, and what to use insteadMutton is sheep over a year old, fattier and much stronger in flavour than lamb, and rarely sold outside halal and specialist butchers. Lamb neck (scrag and middle neck) or shoulder chops are the closest substitute and will be tender in about 90 minutes rather than two hours.
- Trim more fat than she saysLoin and neck of mutton carry a great deal of fat, and there is no browning or straining step here to get rid of it. Trim hard, and skim the surface before serving — the second method's instruction to skim the gravy is the better practice.
- The potato ratioFive pounds of potatoes to three of meat sounds extreme but is the point of the dish: the potatoes at the bottom of the pan tend to collapse and thicken the liquid, while those on top hold their shape better. Use a floury variety such as Maris Piper or russet for that effect.
- WaterA little over a pint (UK pint, 20 fl oz, so roughly 2½ US cups) is correct — the onions and potatoes give up a great deal more. Do not top it up unless the pan is genuinely going dry.
- "Shaking the preparation"On a modern flat hob with a heavy pan, sliding the pan back and forth every twenty minutes does the job; stirring will only mash the potatoes. If you are nervous about sticking, put a layer of onion slices, not potato, on the very bottom.
- The baked versionFor the jar method, a moderate oven is usually read as 325-350F (165-180C). Use a lidded casserole or a covered stoneware pot and give it 2 to 2½ hours; nothing needs shaking, which makes it the easier route.
- Yield and seasoningSix generous portions, as stated. Pepper and salt are the only seasonings, so salt each layer as you build — seasoning only at the end leaves the potatoes flat. Some cooks add a bay leaf or thyme; Mrs Beeton does not.
Irish stew earned its place in a mid-Victorian English household manual as a cheap, one-pot winter dinner rather than as anything exotic: mutton, potatoes, onions, water, and two hours of low heat, at an average cost of 2s 8d for six people. The name is generally traced to the early nineteenth century, when the combination was already identified in Britain with Irish cottage cooking. What is authentically period here is the reliance on mutton — the meat of a mature sheep kept for wool and eaten at the end of its working life — and the sheer weight of potatoes, five pounds to three of meat, which does the work of a thickener in a kitchen with no roux and no stock pot to spare. The closing note on baking it in a jar reflects a common arrangement in houses without a reliable range: the covered pot could be sent to a baker's oven or set in the cooling brick oven and left alone.