Irish Stew

You might associate Irish Stew with a pale, snot-consistency sauce drooped around some tired vegetables and a few scrawny, fatty pieces of lamb. It's one reason why I rarely, if ever, order Irish Stew when I'm eating out. This isn't like that. This is stew that you'd want to eat.

Garlic in Irish stew? Yup. It tastes great. Irish cook Darina Allen has come up with the lovely justification for this shudderingly un-purist ingredient, claiming that garlic grows wild in Ireland and has done for centuries. Whatever. I'm not sure how I can find a justification for the balsamico... but I'm working on a story about an Italian immigrant to Dublin...

Ingredients

• 1 kg lamb neck chops
• 400g carrots, roughly chopped
• 400g onion, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tsp Worcester sauce
• 3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 1 kg potatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 500ml good stock

Fry the neck chops to brown over a medium heat, and pour off the immediate fat that accumulates. Reserve the chops. Deglaze the pan with the balsamic vinegar and some of the stock. Add this to the chops. Add the roughly chopped vegetables to the lamb chops. Fry these in the deep pan for two minutes, then add the stock and parsley, along with the Worcester sauce and garlic, and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add the stock, and then cook the whole mixture on a low heat for 1 hour. Serve with soda bread.