Pat Hamlin, from Ireland, shows how to make Irish stew.
After training as a nurse, she moved to England where she met her now husband at Oxford and followed him back to New Zealand.
Irish stew is a robust dish, not at all dainty, uses cheap ingredients, and is quick and easy to make.
Once it's assembled, you leave it to cook for an hour and a-half and it's your whole meal in one pot.
It also reheats well so you can make it the day before or make enough for two days.
When she was a child they would eat Irish stew a couple of times a week. This is how her mother made it.
Irish stew
Ingredients
4 or 8 lamb shoulder chops depending on size
4 onions, peeled
4 carrots, peeled
4 big potatoes, peeled. Use firm or waxy potatoes
salt and white pepper
sprigs of thyme
water
Method
Slice the onions roughly and spread half of them on the bottom of a pot. Cut the carrots into large chunks and spread half of them over the onions. Cut the potato into chunks and spread over the carrots and onions.
Lay the chops over the vegetables and season with a good sprinkling of salt and white pepper.
Repeat the layers of vegetables, finishing with potatoes on the top.
Poke some sprigs of thyme into the layers.
Pour in a cup of water, or enough to come between a quarter and halfway up the vegetables and meat. Some people like their Irish stew a bit more like a soup and fill the pot up with water.
Put on the stove, bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and leave to cook for an hour and a-half.
Remove the thyme if you are using large pieces, and serve the meat and vegetables into a bowl. Sprinkle with chopped parsley if you like.
This is traditionally eaten as a meal by itself without any other side dishes.
Tips
• Mutton was traditional but it's not easy to find now, so Mrs Hamlin uses lamb or hogget.
• Use firm or waxy potatoes so they don't break up during the cooking.
• Remove any visible fat from the chops before putting them in the dish.
• If you are using a deep dish, you can have several layers of vegetables and meat.
• When Mrs Hamlin was a child the only pepper was ready ground white pepper, but she says black pepper works well.
• Mrs Hamlin likes to use branches of Central Otago thyme.
• Her grandmother used to add pearl barley to the vegetables at the bottom of the dish but her mother didn't.
• Other people like to add leeks or celery and some omit the carrots. Some put the potatoes only on the top of the dish, and some even like to take out the vegetables and meat when cooked and thicken the sauce with flour.
Like all traditional dishes, there are probably as many variations as cooks.
