Irish Stew with Beef CBBC Dish Up

Denise, we're going to make Irish stew with beef,

a real classic in my house,

and it's one that I just think is a really great crowd-pleaser.

It's only a little bit of prep time beforehand,

and then you get it into the oven and it's all sorted.

It could not get simpler, in terms of equipment.

We've got an ovenproof dish and we've got a saucepan.

So it's very simple, but if you had a casserole pot,

-you could also do it all in one.

-Great.

That's what I've got, big casserole pots.

So the first thing we need to do is preheat the oven

-to 200 degrees Celsius. So a hot oven.

-Mm-hmm.

So, we're going to get the heat on our pan. We're going to batch fry off our meat.

With the batch frying, this is important,

because if you put all that meat in at once, it's just going to stew it,

and you don't want that at this stage. You want to brown the meat,

you want to get good colour,

and that's where the flavour comes from as well.

So we're going to do this in batches of two,

so we're going to take half the meat and stick it in now.

So a bit of vegetable oil in the pan.

-How many packets of meat would I need?

-In terms of packs,

you're talking about two packets,

-so it's two 500 gram packets of stewing steak.

-Great.

So we'll get them on frying, and you just have to be careful because

the oil is nice and hot now, so just stand back a little bit.

-Don't want it to spit.

-Throw it!

I wouldn't say throw it, Denise, but OK, go for it.

So about half this meat going in here.

-And don't be afraid of it spitting and frying like this.

-Yeah.

Give your hands a good wash once you're done with the beef as well.

-OK.

-And just spread it across the base of the pan.

-You got a wooden spoon?

-Thank you.

-Lovely.

And once it's spread across the base of the pan, just leave it

because, like I said, you want to get really good colour on it.

Let it seal on one side.

Back over to our veggies. Will we do our onions first?

-OK.

-OK. Onions, we're just getting into a nice fine chop.

Slice it down the centre and then take off the peel.

-Keeping the root intact.

-Yeah.

Taking off the top, you're going to slice down-the-ways like this.

And not all the way through.

-Beautiful.

-And then around...

-It's a rustic stew, so you can go a bit...

It is. Yeah, that's true, actually.

The thing is, after a low and slow cooking time, you're going to be

left with something that's really mouth-wateringly tender,

-so it doesn't really matter.

-And you want it to look a little bit rough

-so people know that it's...

-That you made it.

-Exactly.

-Yeah!

-OK.

-Right, so what am I doing now?

-So you're going to take this out.

-You're going to transfer it out to a plate.

-OK.

And you're going to need the juices in the bottom.

We're going straight in with the rest of the beef.

-Fab. We're flying it.

-I know, look at us.

Very impressive, very impressive.

We're like the dream team in the kitchen.

-You know what, I think we need a cookery show.

-We do.

-Something's going on here.

-Yeah, definitely.

-I do love a peeler. I know - but I find it very satisfying.

-Do you?

We're going to get the ends off our carrot, and we're going to get

the tops off our carrot, and then we're going to cut them into chunks.

Just give them a kind of rough chop - chunky chop.

-Chunky chopped carrots.

-Yeah.

-For a nice chunky stew.

-Oh, yeah.

-Celery next.

-With celery, which bit do you take off and cut off?

So just cut off the end. You only need to take a tiny bit off the end,

-and then if it's looking a bit miserable at the top, trim that.

-OK.

-But all of it is usable.

-So how many of these do I need to put in?

-We've got three celery stalks going in here.

-All of them in?

All of them in, and we're just go to chop them, again,

-similar to your onions, just in rough chunks.

-Right, OK.

I think we're actually, while we're cutting,

I think the beef can come off.

OK, so, the beef is off.

We've got our celery being chopped up, and the pan is still hot,

so we're going to get these straight in,

-we're going to get frying straight away.

-OK.

Into your pan, a little bit of vegetable oil.

-Straight in there with the veggies.

-Yes.

-Got a bit of cooking going.

-It smells good.

-Oh, it smells so good. Do you know what I can

-really smell? The celery.

-It's pretty strong, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's nice.

Do you notice those little bits that have come off at the end of the pan?

-Yeah.

-The little black bits? Don't be worried about them,

because there's lots of flavour coming from that.

-Season it with a bit of sea salt and a bit of black pepper.

-Right.

So these have been in here, cooking away, for about four to six minutes,

just until the onion has softened down.

And now we can stick our meat straight in there. Right.

Meat's back in. It's been mixed through,

so now we're going to transfer across to our ovenproof dish.

OK, so we're just spreading this across the base.

The great thing about this is that you can lift it straight

into the oven, no hassle.

And it's going to cook away quite nicely.

And now our potatoes

are what we're going to top this whole recipe with.

This is good because this is sort of really nice, hearty food, isn't it?

It's got a sort of feeling of warmth about it.

It does, it does, and when you take that out of the oven,

-it is hard to resist.

-Yeah.

So you're looking for nice kind of, I suppose they're about

-half a centimetre in thickness slices.

-Mm-hm.

So that's kind of what you're after.

-OK.

-How's that look? You can do that?

-Yeah.

-Go for it.

Again, with potatoes or any kind of big vegetable like that,

you do need to be careful. Let the knife do all the hard work.

-Is that good?

-Beautiful, beautiful.

So we're going to stick in, before we put on our potatoes,

a little bit of stock over the top.

So I've got some beef stock here, and we're going to share stock

-if that's all right with you.

-OK, I need to know about stock

-because it's not something I'm used to using in the kitchen.

-OK.

-You said beef stock?

-Yeah.

-So how many stock cubes?

So we've got two litres here,

so there's going to be four stock cubes.

So about two stock cubes to one litre.

-Right, OK. Which would be for my one dish.

-Exactly, exactly.

-I'm going to pour yours in for you.

-Thank you.

And do make sure that it's boiling

-when you pour it in so that it continues to cook through.

-OK.

-So just layer in your potatoes over the top.

-That one's a bit thick.

I'm going to thin that one a bit.

You don't have to be too particular about this because what's going

to happen, when this comes out of the oven, your potatoes

will be soft, and you're taking a nice big spoonful of the potato

with your meat, with that lovely veggie mix.

-It's going to be good.

-OK.

-There you go.

-That's beautiful. That is beautiful.

So just dot that with a few knobs of butter.

So the idea of putting the butter there is that...

Is that going to make it brown?

It's going to melt down and give good colour over the top.

-And crispy.

-A bit of crisp. A bit of sea salt and black pepper

-and then this goes into the oven.

-Mm-hm.

-We're away.

This is going to cook up for an hour, and it's going to cook

at 200 degrees Celsius, and it's going to cook under the tinfoil.

After an hour, we're going to take off the tinfoil, crisp up

those potatoes for about 15 minutes and it'll be good to serve.

Now this is the big moment. After an hour and 15 minutes waiting,

-we get to dive in and try it.

-The whole family, looking, staring...

-The whole family, visualise it.

-Waiting.

So you've got loads of potatoes, you've got that wonderful meat,

and you get some carrots, and look at that.

-So we dig in and try some.

-Mm-hmm.

-A bit of meat, a bit of carrot.

-Mm!

-Mm-mm-mm.

-It's so nice. This is a winner for the family.

-Mm-hmm.

-So you're going to try this?

-Mm!

-Fantastic.

So there you go, Irish stew with beef. Very simple to make.

An hour in the oven. An hour and 15 in the oven,

-and it's very, very simple. Only a few ingredients.

-Great.

This is definitely going to be one of my weekend dishes.

-That's what I like to hear.

-When I've got a bit of extra time,

Betsy's outside playing in the garden or, walking the dog,

-and then I can just get busy doing this.

-Can I come round?

Of course you can, you're always welcome. You know that.

-Thanks very much.

-You'd have to clean the kitchen after.

-Well...OK.