Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We found this delicious gem a little while ago and decided to make it our official St. Patrick’s Day meal. There is definitely gold at the end of this rainbow, if you can fend off the leprechaun, cause this stuff was absolutely fantastic!

Let’s begin.

You’ll notice that I don’t exactly own a giant 5 quart Dutch oven. So, I had to improvise. I ended up having to split this dish in half and cook one batch first, devour, and go back and cook the second one later. This actually worked out pretty well because the quantities in this recipe were pretty easy to cut in half.

Also, the same lack of a Dutch oven that could go both on the stovetop and in the oven had me split the cooking between two different dishes. One (which I’m sure you recognize by now) is my trusted pan. I prepared the dish on the stovetop using the regular pan. In the meantime, I put the giant oven safe dish in the oven while it was preheating, to make up for the fact.

Obviously, the recipe just calls for an Irish Stout of any kind. I opted for Guinness, even though this particular bottle was draught.

We’re cooking this bad boy until the meat is tender. The temperature is 350.

Step 16: While the stew is doing its thing, leave your frozen baby peas to thaw.

Review

The ingredients: The ingredients in this perfect St. Patrick’s Day meal were listed conveniently and with a great amount of detail. In terms of ingredient availability, everything that was used today you probably either already have in your fridge/pantry or you can easily find in your local supermarket. I ended up using a regular Guinness Draught, but you can go for any Irish Stout if you’re not a fan of good ol’ Guinness.

The recipe: This recipe is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. The only difficulty I had was that I didn’t have a Dutch oven that can be used both stovetop and in the oven. Also, the ones I had definitely weren’t 5 quart juggernauts. But, both of these were a pretty easy fix. I simply split the recipe in half and transferred from a stovetop-safe pan to an oven-safe one when the time was right. Otherwise, you shouldn’t have any difficulty following this recipe. The post doesn’t come with any step-by-step images, so if you need more detail, follow 2girlsandapin as we prepared this savory, decadent, delicious Irish stew since we like to take pictures of every minuscule detail!

Great thing about this recipe is that it has instructions on how to freeze this. I was contemplating cooking the second batch of the stew in a slow cooker to see how that would turn out, but I decided against it, simply out of time constraints. I most definitely wasn’t about to get up in the middle of the night to check on a Crock Pot. BUT, I’m sure it can totally be done.

The flavor: This was HOLY BATMAN amazing! It was SO, so flavorful with an intoxicating aroma to follow. The beef broth, tomato paste and Guinness made a perfect harmony of the most flavorful, thick, juicy gravy that put the roasted-to-perfection potatoes and beef chunks into a cushion-y cloud of deliciousness. The baby peas found their perfect resting place in this stew and tie this whole ridiculousness with a perfect pop of green. As you can see from the massacre that was my bowl once I was done with this one, I really, really liked it.

If you’re concerned that the Guinness was going to mess up this flavor, causing it to taste bitter or whatever, you’re sorely mistaken, because these three (beef broth, Guinness, and tomato paste) just make the world go around when it comes to this stew. I can’t stop geeking out about it. I may just go and grab another bowl…

Issues: The only issues I had with this recipe were solely my bad. I went into this adventure knowing that I was not in possession of an adequate baking dish, so I improvised. Instead of a Dutch oven that could be used on both the stovetop and oven I opted for bringing the stew to a boil in a regular pan and transferring it to a oven-proof dish for the baking portion. Also, if you read the original recipe, this bad boy serves 10, which is why having a 5 quart dish is probably a good idea. I definitely didn’t have that either, so I split the recipe in half and cooked one than the other.

Comments: The only comment I had and was kind of surprised about was that the beef tossed in flour was just dumped into the pan with everything else and brought to a boil that way. I mean, it turned perfectly and the gravy totally thickened anyway…so there was no need to brown the meat prior to cooking.

The significant other absolutely loved this one too, but had a comment that next time I make this (notice the request) I try and turn down the tomato paste a little since he thought it was a bit too tomato-ey and didn’t give the Guinness enough room to shine. This is debatable in my opinion, but I’m always open to suggestions.

Final Verdict: This recipe’s yum factor is a 10/10, without a doubt! Both my significant other and myself were total fan boys and girls of this one and it is most definitely going into my regulars repertoire. Simple, easy, but with a whole lot of flavor.