We’ve been busy here at Divine Dinner Party putting together new pages for Thanksgiving and Halloween. Just recently, we wrote a page about traditional Irish Halloween food, where we mention the idea of serving an Irish beef stew in a pumpkin. But we’ve gotta give you guys the recipe, right? So this post is sort of a double. The first part gives you a recipe for just about the best Irish beef stew you’ll ever try. The second part gives you instructions for serving the stew in a pumpking for a nice dinner party (or just because it looks really cool, and will totally impress your kids).

´Nuff said, right? Read on:

Guinness Irish Beef Stew Recipe

As soon as the weather turns cold, I want to eat this stew just about every day. It’s rich and flavorful and so warming. Since it’s cooked slowly in a low-temp oven, the meat comes out tender and just wonderful. I spent a long time searching for the perfect stew, and this is the one. It’s not a super thick stew, so if you prefer your stews a little thicker, reduce the beef broth a bit.

Click to enlarge.

You can also try this with lamb, which is delicious. But I usually use beef because it’s cheaper and tastes just wonderful in this recipe. Either way, this recipe serves 4-6 people as a main dish and makes enough to fill about a 10 lb. pumpkin.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. butter or olive oil
3 bay leaves
2 lbs. beef stew meat
1 lg. onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. dry thyme
1 tsp. dry rosemary
4 tbsp. all purpose flour
1 1/3 C. beef broth
1/2 C. Guinness (or other dark beer)
1 1/2 C. carrots, sliced 1/2″
3-4 medium potatoes, cubed
1-2 tbsp. fresh minced parsley
salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Trim most of the fat from the beef and cut into 1 to 1 1/2″ cubes.

2. In a large dutch oven (or other oven-safe dish), heat the oil or butter over medium-high heat on stove-top.

3. Add the bay leaves and cook until fragrant. Add the onions.

4. Cook onions just until translucent.

5. Add stew meat. Brown on all sides over high heat, about 2-3 minutes.

6. Remove from heat and stir in garlic, rosemary, and thyme. Add flour and stir until well mixed.

7. Return to heat and stir in beef stock until smooth. Add Guinness.

8. Bring to a simmer and allow to thicken slighly.

9. Stir in potatoes, carrots, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

10. Remove from heat, cover, and place in oven.

11. Bake, covered, about two hours, stirring occasionally.

12. Serve up in a bowl or in a pumpkin (as pictured below) with lots of hot crusty bread and butter.

Recipe to Serve Beef Stew in a Pumpkin

This is really impressive, pretty, and oh-so tasty. Add another two hours of cook time to make your stew this way.

Ingredients:
1 medium pumpkin (about 10 lbs.)
1 recipe for beef stew (above)
1 tbsp. olive oil

Instructions: 1. Prepare stew. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

2. Wash the outside of the pumpkin well.

3. Cut a hole with a 5-7″ diameter into the top of the pumpkin. In the photo, a small amount of pumpkin was trimmed away to decorate the stew for a Halloween recipe. This is optional!

4. Scoop out all seeds and loose, stringy fibes (from both lid and pumpkin).

5. Place empty pumpkin in a roomy but shallow baking dish.

6. Pour in your prepared beef stew.

7. Replace the pumpkin top.

8. Brush outside of pumpkin and top with olive oil.

9. Bake about two hours, until tender.

10. For each serving, scrape out a little bit of pumpkin along with the stew.

Trackback Post

Related Posts