“Guinness Stew”

By Tom Cleary
Food Columnist

This weeks recipe is a very simple but tasty meal, Guinness stew.  The only basic ingredients the dish needs are beef, potatoes, carrots and a dark beer.  Now the beer technically can be replaced by beef stock or water, but lets keep it real here, there is nothing that can replace the rich full bodied flavor a good dark beer, such as Guinness, gives to this dish.  For those who are not “21” and maybe thinking that because the are unable to buy the beer they can’t make this dish, don’t work beef stock works well too, but the beer is better.

Ingredients
-2lb of stewing beef
-2 large potatoes, chopped in large bite sized pieces
-2 large carrots, chopped in large bite sized pieces
-1 large onion, chopped in large pieces
- 1 large bay leaf
-salt, pepper, thyme, basil to taste
-one bottle of Guinness Stout Beer

Preparation
-Season beef with some salt and pepper.
-In a large pot, sauté the onions in some olive oil until they turn clear, then add the carrots and potaoes and let cook for about 5 min. Then remove all the vegetables.
-In that same pan brown the beef, in small manageable batches, once this is done put all of the semi cooked vegetables back in the pot.
-Mix the beef and vegetables around a bit, then add the bottle of beer or until the beef and vegetables are ¾ of the way covered.
-Add the bay leaf and then bring the stew to a simmer.  Let the stew simmer for 2-3 hours, adding seasonings for taste and stirring occasionally.