Irish Stew

July 10, 2001

Christchurch is about to embark on its arts festival, a two-yearly event. Lots of cultural events are planned, from the quirky to the downright unusual and plenty else in between.

The local Canterbury Opera is planning a season of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann and in preparation for the event we went along to a function designed to give us a little inside knowledge on the production.

Winter has struck here with a vengeance and every day this month has started with a pretty brisk frost. We've been rewarded with a wonderful day afterwards but it's certainly been rather chilly. So chilly in fact that the water pipes have been frozen several times lately, something I've never encountered before.

Son Ben recently put an oil heater in his bedroom and our aging cat has been quick to locate the warmest room in the house and has taken to knocking on Ben's bedroom door so he can be let in to share the heater. He's a Wellington cat, unused to such chilly nights.

Our opera function was a cocktail party held at the lakeside home of one of the city's philanthropists and as we picked our way around the small lake, we weren't the least surprised to find that most of the surface was frozen.

Fortunately we were soon in a very cosy reception room, sipping wine and listening to a synopsis of the opera and a couple of arias from the production - including the famed Barcarole.

We are quietly hoping that the city will warm up a little before our big run of nights out at the festival. Meanwhile we've been fortifying ourselves with solid winter fare.

Both The Spouse and I have numerous Irish forebears, so I decided a hearty Irish stew would keep us fuelled up for another frosty night.

Indeed it did. Several helpings vanished quite rapidly.

This is a dish that requires little attention once it is assembled and put in the oven. It's almost an all-in-one event and requires only a green vegetable accompaniment - we enjoyed some crisp fresh beans.

I like to use shoulder chops rather than neck chops for this dish and I was fortunate to get some very lean ones that needed a minimum of trimming.

This is the dish, much as my grandmother and mother made it. No doubt they learned it off one of the Irish grannies. Mum says her cousin used to call it "bone stew."

Irish Stew

8 shoulder lamb chops
500ml chicken stock (or water)
2 leeks
2 carrots
4 medium potatoes
1 parsnip

Remove any visible fat from the chops and cut each one in half. Place in a large casserole dish with the chicken stock. Trim the leeks to below the level where the dirt goes between the layers - the cleaned tops can be used for soup. Cut the whole leeks into 2.5cm lengths. Peel the carrots and parsnips and cut into chunks. Peel the potatoes, if necessary, and cut into halves then quarters.

Add the vegetables to the casserole. Cover with a lid and bake at 160C for 2-3 hours until the meat falls away from the bone. Check the seasoning, adding salt if necessary. Before serving, skim off any fat and then thicken the gravy with a little flour mixed with cold water. Reheat.

This is a pale stew. Don't be tempted to try to change the colour with spurious additives.

Sprinkle the finished dish with some chopped fresh herbs like parsley. Serve with a green vegetable…and enjoy.