Stew, How To Make

Yesterday, I made stew, which turned out brilliantly as usual. I do make an excellent bit of stew, by the way; it's about the only thing that I make using 'ingredients' as opposed to 'packets of'.

If you happen to be hungry for a bit of stew, here's how you should make it. Do not deviate from these instructions, or you are likely to create a pot of inedible filth. I am an Irishman (of The Second Type), and the various branches of my dark ancestry have been making stew this way since they first came down from their trees and began subjugating other Irishmen (of The First Type) and taking their women, so there.

First of all, find the largest pot you can. Stew-making is no small-scale operation. I have a big pot with a handle on either side; that's the type you're after. Take this pot, throw in some salt, and crack some black pepper into it. Keep cracking that black pepper. As soon as you think you've added too much, add some more, and then stop. That's the exact amount that you need.

Hear me now, for this is the last time I'll say it: a good stew needs plenty of black pepper. That's where the exotic taste comes from.

Now you'll need to boil a kettle and empty it into the pot until there's enough water in there to cover your average spud. Importantly, the water should be brown and dirty-looking. If it's not, add some more black pepper, because you've deviated from my instructions already and you haven't added enough.

It's time to add the spuds to the pepper-water. It doesn't matter if they're floury or waxy; after they've been boiled for two hours, they'll all be floury, trust me. You'll want about ten good-sized spuds. Peel them, rinse them, and cut them into big chunks (halves, thirds, that sort of size). No smaller than that, please. Then take another two spuds (smaller ones), peel them, wash them, and cut them up into tiny little bits. Shreds. These are your 'sacrificial spuds'; in time, they will disintegrate entirely and turn into mush, adding vital body to your stew. Chuck everything into the pot and give it all a stir about. Don't put it over the heat just yet, because it's time to add the carrots.

Take five good-sized carrots. Scrape them clean and chop them into circular chunks. Don't cut them too fine or they'll turn into mush. Throw them into the pot and toss them around with the spuds. Now you can put them over the heat. A high heat, please.

Now it's time to add the onion. Onion is a vital part of the stew experience. You can not skip the onion. Don't worry if you don't like onion; you won't be able to recognise any of it by the time the stew is done stewing. So, yeah; peel an onion and chop it up into nice big chunks. Not big dirty onion rings, or little diced onion bits, but something in between. Perfect. Dump it all into the pot. Yesterday, just to be fancy, I chopped up a few shallots (miniature onions) as well; I didn't need to.

By this stage, you should be able to smell the initial peppery, carroty smells wafting up from the pot. If not, add some more black pepper now.

Now it's time to add the meatballs. Tradition says that you should use cubes of lamb; you can, if you want to be traditional. I am not in the cubes-of-lamb-buying bracket just yet, so I use a pound of 'Doherty's Special' hamburger meat. That's what my granny used, you see. If you don't have access to Doherty's Special, just improvise with some other sort of minced beef. Take your pound of mince and put it into a mixing bowl with a sprinkle of mixed herbs*. Mush it all up between your fingers. I hope you've cleaned your hands. If you'd like to fantasize that you're a crazy, poorly-written doctor mushing up somebody's brains, you can. Whispering "now, Alvin, now I have all that you are and all that you've ever been in my cruel hands, ha!" might help.

You'll want to continue mushing until it's all a featureless red paste with no stringy bits. Now you can make meatballs. Tear a bit off, roll it into a rough sphere, and dump it into the pot. Continue until there is no meat left. Everybody likes big meatballs, so make 'em good and chunky. Somewhere between 'swollen testicle' and 'cricket ball' is what you're after.

Now make sure everything is covered with water. It's time to add some more salt, and another sprinkle of black pepper. Give it all a stir, whack the heat up to full (it should be bubbling nicely), and go away for an hour.

The next ingredient is time. You have to be prepared to leave the stew alone to manage itself. There's nothing wrong with giving it an occasional stir, but you might be tempted to say "look, it's done!" as soon as you see the spuds go nice and white. If this is so, then you are probably an American. The spuds are not done. The stew needs time to reduce down, until it's all nice and thick and saucy. You will not pour any water out. You must let it evaporate.

After an hour, come back, give it a stir, and go away again for another forty minutes or so. When you next come back, you should not see 'water'. You should see 'creamy gloop'. The stew is ready! The creamy substance should be a rich brown colour, due to the pepper and the meat juices. If not, then you haven't been following my instructions carefully enough, and you need to add some more black pepper. Do so.

Take three plates and spoon the stew out into three nice heaps. Smell that goodness. Take one of the plates and tip it at about thirty degrees to the horizontal. If any watery sauce drips off the plate, then it's not thick enough; you were impatient, weren't you? You didn't let it reduce down like I said. Enjoy your broth.

Right! Assuming that you've followed my instructions correctly, you can now serve the stew. Importantly you need some brown sauce to go with that stew, or there's no point. I've encountered Americans before who had no idea what brown sauce was; well, that explains a lot of things. Go and find some, because you need some for your stew. Splash it all over.

Okay! Tuck in. Enjoy. And if it doesn't taste like it should, that's because you haven't added enough black pepper.

*You will use the blend of dried herbs I've specified, or you are nothing but a fresh-herb-using pansy, and I spit on you and your lifestyle.

(Just think! Part of my job is to write design documentation for complex software frameworks! Wouldn't you all like to work for me one day, folks?)

EDIT (About eight months later): Here's how it is, ladies and gentlemen: I've installed a bit of analytic software so I know where my hits are coming from. By some mad freak of internet nature, most of my hits come from this post; well-meaning folks looking for a viable stew solution. I'll be honest; I am not an expert. I'm emulating my mother's stew, and my grandmother's stew. And I'm a man, so that emulation will at best be flawed, and at worst be capable of killing folks from a hundred paces.

So don't follow my stew-making advice. It works for me; that's all I can say. It's a thing you have to hone. A stew is a combination of potatoes, carrots, onions and meat, left for some unknown length of time over a hot stove. That's all I know.