Irish stew hot-pot
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp plain flour
- 675g (1½ lb) lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into chunks
- 1tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 large carrots, sliced
- 600ml (1 pint) (2 ½ cups) chicken stock (A stock cube is fine)
- A dash of Worcestershire sauce
- 675g (1½lb) even-sized potatoes
- 40g (1 ½ oz) (3 tbsp) Kerrygold Pure Irish Salted Butter
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Cold Winter evenings, a peat fire and pot of stew. This recipe is a right of passage and one to teach your kids before they flee the nest. Also excellent with neck of lamb or gigot chops. Just ask your butcher to cut it into 4 cm (1 ½in) slices. The stew will be bony but the flavour, sublime.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas Mark 4. Place the flour in a shallow dish and season generously. Coat the lamb in seasoning too. Arrange half of the lamb in the bottom of a round casserole dish and add a sprinkling of thyme. Scatter over the onion, followed by the carrots, then season to taste and add another sprinkling of thyme. Arrange the remaining lamb on top to cover the vegetables completely and sprinkle over the remaining thyme.
- Pour enough chicken stock to just come up above the last layer of lamb. Add a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce. Cover the casserole with a lid and place in the oven. Once in the pot, it cooks itself. After 1 hour check on the stew and if the lamb and vegetables are just tender and the stock has thickened slightly, it’s done.
- Place the potatoes in a large pan of boiling salted water and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Drain in a colander and set aside for 5 minutes until cool enough to handle. Slice the potatoes lengthways into 1cm (½ in) thick slices and lay them in a slightly overlapping blanket layer on top of the stew.
- Melt the butter in a small pan or microwave and brush over the potatoes. Season to taste and cook in the oven for another 40 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through and nicely golden and the lamb stew in bubbling up around the edges of the dish. Serve straight from the oven to the table.
