Irish Stew

Ingredients

• five large onions
• about three pounds of meat
• slices of potato
• a little pepper
• a little salt
• something heavy, such as a four-pound weight

Method

1. 1

   Slice the onions and cover the bottom of a stew-pan with slices of potato and onions.

2. 2

   Add a layer of meat, seasoned with pepper and salt, then cover with more potato and onion.

3. 3

   Pack tightly, add a little water to moisten, cover with a lid and a heavy weight, and simmer gently for about three hours without boiling or removing the lid.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Common-sense papers on cookery (1880) by A. G. Payne, page 76. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

five large onions, cutting them crossways, so that circular rings fall in slicing. Next take a good-sized stew-pan — an enamelled one is best — and cover the bottom with slices of potato and onions ; add a little pepper and salt, and then cover this with a layer of meat, the quan- tity required being about three pounds. The trimmed i88 Common-sense Cookery. neck or loin of mutton should be cut into rather thin chops, and the short bones at the end of the neck should, of course, be all cut into separate pieces. Again pepper and salt the meat, and cover it over with a thin layer of sliced potato and onion. The whole should be packed rather close — i.e. very little space should be left between the pieces, so that a very little water added will be sufficient to fill up the stew-pan, so that the top layer is moistened. Add this quantity of water, so as to avoid leaving any of the potato or onion uncovered. Next cover over the stew-pan, seeing that the lid fits close ; place something heavy, such as a four-pound weight, on the lid to keep it down, and allow the whole to simmer gently for about three hours. Be careful, however, not to let it boil, as that is apt to render the meat hard. Also on no account take off the lid during the stewing process, as by so doing you let out the flavour. It will be readily seen how exceedingly economical this dish is, as absolutely nothing ^s lost, as the liquor is eaten as well as the potato and onion. In roasting a joint some of the flavour necessarily goes up the chimney, and in boiling a joint some goes into the water in which the joint is boiled. Irish stew

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.