Hello Foodies and Food-effs. This is your sometimes contributor/writer Nathan O'Guin. (And standard site writer and editor, Jon O’Guin, because Nate doesn’t have Word on his home computer, so he wrote this whole thing in Notepad, and I get to make it all fit.) Giving you an absolutely delicious meal just in time for tomorrow's celebration of Saint Patrick's Day. Remember to thank him for clearing the snakes for the Emerald Isle among other tings. Pretty sure he also supposedly battled the Loch Ness monster? According to a Google search and clicking two articles (you know, the modern research method), I discovered that was actually Saint Columbia. So just go ahead and ignore that Loch Ness bit. Anywho, let's get on with the post and the dish we made, Irish Stew. (And, to be clear, by “We”, he does not mean him and I. But he’ll explain that in a second. No, this was, in theory, a post I got to take off. I say “in theory” because Nate doesn’t know how to upload pictures to the site, or the other little editing details, like including a link straight to the recipe at the start, so I got to skip half of the process. Still, a nice change of pace, and a lucky one, since I was actually briefly ill this weekend. (Nothing to worry about, just an upset stomach after a little too much Japanese food, but it knocked me out Saturday night-Sunday afternoon.)

Running the Wicklow 

Not gonna lie, a little shaky on the title. But not every Irish country/province lends itself to be a title pun. (I mean, if you just used “burning”, it would work a lot better. Wouldn’t make a ton of sense, but at least you burn wicks) The reason I am posting this is a bit of a fun story. I recently went to the Seattle Sounder's home opener with a good friend of mine, Amanda Gutgsell. This led to a great day in Seattle that included slightly more drinking then I normally do.

Drinking at soccer matches? No one told me this was a thing!

After getting some drinks prior to the match, I maintained a nice buzz throughout the remainder of the day. After catching the ferry back to our side of the Puget Sound, we stopped by an Irish Pub. While eating we talked about Irish Stew and in the way that a buzz gets the good ideas flowing, we decided it was in the best interest for us to make Irish Stew ourselves. In typical O'Guin fashion, upon arriving home, I promptly told Jon that Amanda and I were making stew, we'd post it and obviously our post deserves top billing for St. Patrick's Day, regardless of whatever his plan was for. Although I may have asked if he had a plan and tried to weasel my way to writing today's post. Either one could be true. (It was a little of both. He was notably intoxicated by the time I saw him, which was like, 7 PM. I believe his exact words were “Jon, did you have a plan for a St Paddy’s Day post?” “Well, I-” “TOO BAD, because Amanda and I are going to make Irish Stew. …If that’s okay.” ) But this lead to the search for the greatest Irish stew recipe I could find. It definitely did not involve me waiting until the day before Amanda and I were supposed to make the stew, finding the one that took the shortest time, as she would not be over until 6:30, and picking that one so we could eat early and I could go to sleep early, as I am 64 years old in spirit.

Offaly Bad At Planning 

So the day of creation arrives and I need to go to the store after work because I didn't get any of the needed ingredients over the weekend. (Not picking a recipe until the day before will do that) Then, I also remembered that I didn't check to see what we had vs what I needed. So after work I screenshot the recipe and called home to spot check what I needed to pick up. …Only to discover Jon was already out and and about and had already been to the grocery store, so that would be of no help. (I had discovered that the potatoes I had bought for Colcannon were green, and decided not to poison my family and guest with solanine and instead buy potatoes while running some errands. He actually got screwed over by ONE driver: I was going to buy the groceries last, but someone partially pulled into traffic, blocking the turn lane I wanted, forcing me into the grocery store parking lot.)

My other errand that day was preparing my clubs for snake-killing.

But after navigating the mires of my own poor preparation, I returned home and waited for Amanda to arrive with the lamb. However, she informed me that none of the stores she visited had had lamb worth getting ,so she settled on some good ol' Beef Chuck. While she was looking for the meat, I took the time to actually attempt a mise en place. In the sense that I decided to pre-chop most of our vegetables. I decided on a more rustic stew, in that chop would be coarser with larger pieces. This was decided because I was failing at doing the onion chop technique so everything else needed to be bigger too. Amanda arrived part-way through this and took to cubing the meat she brought as that needed to be cubed and browned as step one of the recipe. I had a bit of a mental issue where I started to cube the potatoes while Amanda finished but then I didn't want them to brown while waiting to go in the pot, so I stopped. THEN I realized I was stewing the starchy suckers, so who cares if they color a bit? But I had convinced myself to wait on the other steps, so uncubed they remained

Keep your Hopes on a Short Laois

(Credit where credit’s due, the “every section gets a new County name” is a solid bit for titles.) The only real issue arrived shortly thereafter: we were browning the meat, and the first batch adhered to the bottom and didn't want to be turned. I blame myself for putting too much oil in. The recipe calls for 2 Tbsp. I put in...an amount. I didn't measure and thought, "hmm, that probably isn't quite 2 Tbsp." And roughly doubled what was in the pot. However, it eventually relented, and the next batches went pretty well leaving smooth sailing. We had to brown in rounds because we had more meat than pan-space. About 4 rounds of more meat. After you brown the meat, place it on a plate, and set it aside. Next throw your veggies into the pot and cook until soft. You'll note I said I left the chunks a bit bigger, which means that step took us a bit longer than the recipe said. But…we decided we sick of waiting and just moved on a little earlier than we should have. At which point you add in some garlic and cook for about a minute. After which you throw in stock, the meat, potatoes, and 16 oz of Guinness…while we had 11 oz bottles. So we just decided “two of those will work”. A decision I feel may not have been the best. (most recipes go a little wonky when you use 37% more of an ingredient than instructed.)Then bring it to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. At which point I remembered that Jon normally has PICTURES in these posts, and that I have taken none. So…here’s our scrap bowl?

The visual metaphor of literally leaving me his scraps is not lost on me.

Connaught Have A Quiet Night

So while we wait for the stew to simmer, Amanda gets the idea that the best way to pass the time is to have a drink. She thinks the best drink to have on a Monday night is an Irish Car Bomb. (A name I CANNOT recommend NOT using near any older Irish persons, or in any bar in Ireland. Like, it is socially on par with naming a drink the “9/11” as far as they’re concerned. And it’s not like it had a long history beforehand: the drink was invented in the 70’s in Connecticut. Its creator is, as far as I can tell, still alive, and has made multiple apologies for the name. It actually has a somewhat interesting history, that we may explore at a later date, since Nate’s recipe doesn’t actually match the original, but is what I know the recipe to be.) For those of you who don't know that drink, it goes as follows: Take a shot glass, fill it mostly with Bailey's and float some Jameson on top. Then drop the shot glass into a cup partial filled with Guinness and consume all of it immediately. They are pretty good, but if you have a sensitive stomach, maybe don't look in the glass while drinking, since the whiskey does curdle the Bailey's a bit. As we still have 4 bottles of Guinness and Jameson, the only thing we need to locate is Bailey's. I say that I don't think we have any of the famed Irish Cream Liqueur. To which my mother steps up to the plate and reaches to the back of a shelf that's hardly used and pulls out 6 shooter sized bottles of Bailey's. I take it a step further into Pretentious World and ensure my cup is Green and for my shot glass I select the shot glass I bought at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. 

I have little to add to this picture, other than that they had some drinks, THEN invited me up to have some.
And also to note that, if that last section felt weird, it’s not all in your head: for some reason Nate changed to present tense instead of past, and changing it was more editing work than I felt like doing

Not Just A Meal For Few, But One Fermanagh 

Once the drinking and simmering is done, it’s time to serve up. Jon made his Colcannon before I even started the stew process, so it had come down a bit in temperature, but we still slopped some of that into our bowls and ladled homemade Irish Stew over the potato creation and enjoyed.

You can’t even SEE the colcannon in there.
Which is fine, it got its day.

It was good. It would have been a bit better in my opinion, if we had let it simmer down a bit more so the meat was more tender  and the broth less runny. As I mentioned before, I think the extra Guinness we used didn’t help the thinness of the stew. It also, to me at least, added a subtle but strange after-flavor. (I can’t tell if he was trying to be less judgmental, or just legitimately forgot the word ‘aftertaste’ exists. Anyway, I don’t disagree with his points. In my opinion the only thing really holding the stew back was the loss of tenderness a long stew would have given the beef.) So I think keeping the recommended amount of beer might just be the way to go. Or simmer with the lid off, or per Jon today and Amanda the day of, we could have added a cornstarch slurry to thicken it up. All in all though, a good meal.

THURSDAY: JON TALKS ABOUT FOOD SHOWS, SINCE WE’RE ALL STUCK IN DOORS AROUND HERE.

MONDAY: JON MAY MAKE SOMETHING A LITTLE LIGHTER…OR HE MAY HAVE TO GO WITH THE STEAK HE’S ALREADY PREPARED.

Recipe

Irish Beef Stew

INGREDIENTS

3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

2 lb. beef chuck stew meat, cubed into 1" pieces

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into rounds

2 stalks celery, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks

4 c. low-sodium beef broth

1 (16-oz.) bottle Guinness

2 tsp. fresh thyme

Preparation

1. In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons oil. Season beef with salt and pepper, then add to pot and cook on all sides until seared, 10 minutes, working in batches if necessary. Transfer beef to a plate.

2. In same pot, add remaining tablespoon oil and cook onion, carrots, and celery until soft, 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute.

3. Add beef back to Dutch oven, then add potatoes, broth, beer, and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and let simmer until beef and potatoes are tender, 30 minutes.