Irish Stew

This is a hearty stew for the coldest of winter days on the Emerald Isle (or in the Mitten).  This is another recipe from our favorite Joy of Cooking (pp. 496).  This is a lamb stew, and we were able to pick up some lamb chops at our local Kroger to throw in.  The result was very tasty.

Notes:

• Quantity - the recipe called for 3 pounds of stew lamb.  As Kroger did not have stew lamb, we picked up a couple of packages (~ 2 lbs total) of some bone-in lamb chops, which seemed to work quite well.  We didn't really scale back the amount of vegetables, but that can't hurt, right?
• Liquid - the recipe said to use either chicken stock, dark stout, or water.  We opted for about half-and-half chicken stock and stout (Murphy's Stout - 'twas a bit less expensive than Guinness but still tasty - just not if you ask Caroline ;-) ).  This seemed to work out well, and helped it taste close to the Irish Stew at Conor O'Neill's (on Main St. in AA).
• Thickening potatoes - we sliced up some potatoes that were supposed to disintegrate and thicken the stew, but this didn't work.  In discussing why it didn't work, we came up with the theory.  The time we've had potatoes thicken a stew we cooked it on the stove - this recipe had us cook the stew for an hour and a half in a Dutch oven in the oven.  Perhaps the stew needs to cook harder for this to work, or else you have to slice the potatoes really thin.

Pictures!

Before going in the oven.

Ready for consumption (the carrots are added after an hour in the oven).

Verdict - a very tasty dish that makes good left overs and should be made to warm body and soul!