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Irish Stew (Pounds Chops neck Pounds)
2 Pounds Chops (neck) 4 Pounds Potatoes (after paring) 8 Onions, large Cut meat in convenient pieces; slice potatoes and onions; put layer of onions and potatoes at the bottom of stew pan, place the meat on this and season it plentifully with pepper, lightly with salt.
Pack closely and cover the meat with another layer of potato and onion. Pour in as much water or stock as will moisten the topmost layer. Cover tightly and let simmer gently for three hours. Don't remove the lid as it hurts the flavor.
A layered, lid-on stew that relies on the potatoes collapsing into the liquid rather than on any thickening. The proportions are generous and the method is nearly hands-off.
- The meat is lamb or mutton"Chops (neck)" in a book of this period means neck of mutton — scrag end and middle neck, bone in. Ask a butcher for lamb neck chops or bone-in neck slices; boneless shoulder cut into 2-inch pieces works, though the bones are what give the liquid body.
- Keep the lid onThe original's reason is flavour: 'Don't remove the lid as it hurts the flavor.' In practice a tight lid also keeps the liquid in, and with only enough water to moisten the top layer there is little to spare over three hours.
- Use two grades of potatoPotato ratio -- Four pounds of potato to two of meat means the sliced potato, particularly the lower layer, will tend to break down and thicken the liquid. Using floury potatoes (russet, Maris Piper) on the bottom and waxier slices on top is one way to get both sauce and intact pieces, though the original makes no such distinction.
- How much water'As much as will moisten the topmost layer' means pouring in until the liquid reaches and wets the top, not until the vegetables are covered; the exact amount depends on the pan. If your lid is loose, lay a sheet of parchment or foil under it rather than adding more water.
- Three hours, and it means itNeck is heavily worked meat, full of connective tissue. Three hours at a bare simmer is what converts that to gelatin. The original calls for a covered stew pan on the heat; a low oven is a modern alternative if you find the temperature easier to hold steady there.
- Salt lightly, then correctThe original's 'plentifully with pepper, lightly with salt' leaves room to adjust. Season the layers modestly and correct at the end, once the potatoes have absorbed the liquid and the seasoning has concentrated.
- Skim before servingMutton and lamb neck render a good deal of fat, which will pool on the surface. Tip the pan and spoon it off, or make the stew a day ahead and lift the set fat off cold — the flavour improves overnight either way.
- YieldSix pounds of raw material feeds six to eight generously. Nothing else is needed with it beyond bread and something sharp — pickled cabbage or a vinegary salad.
Irish stew in its plainest form is mutton, potato, onion and water, and the argument over whether anything else belongs in it has been running since at least the nineteenth century. The cut specified here is the giveaway: neck was among the cheapest sheep meat available, tough, bony and useless for roasting, but transformed by long moist cooking — the dish is a way of making a hard-worked animal edible rather than a way of showing off a good joint. It is a single-pot dish requiring one fire and three largely unattended hours, and it feeds a household. The insistence on keeping the lid down is practical advice from an era of coal ranges and imprecise heat, when a stew that dried out could not simply be rescued with a splash from the tap without ruining the gravy the potatoes had spent all afternoon making.