IRISH STEW, OR: MUST HAVE SAMBAL!

Over on the Anglo Indian food page, there is a long discussion about Irish Stew. Which is mutton chunks from the shoulder or neck, onions, root vegetables. Plus parsley. The meat is browned a bit, as are the chopped onions. Potatoes or other root vegetables are added about halfway through the slow-simmer with liquid phase, so that they won't fall apart during the long cooking. The parsley is added at the end.

Upscale heresies cooked in America may add more vegetables, plus beer or brown stock, as well as thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf.
And roux. Which is slightly pointless.

The key element is long slow cooking to tenderize the elderly sheep or packmule. Plus incorporating the pan-crusties into the broth. Salt and pepper may be used, and are in fact recommended.


As it turns out, most Anglo Indians know it because of their nanny, or a relative, boarding school, the nuns, and just generally their environment.


It should therefore come as no surprise that a group so diverse in origins and home-environments as the Anglo Indians will have so many strongly held and often thoroughly justified different opinions.


Because I am a Dutch American without a drop of Irish or Indian ancestry, living in San Francisco, California, and being culinarily influenced most by Dutch Indonesian food, Indian Restaurant food (having worked at a local Desi restaurant part-time for close to a decade and a half), and Chinatown Cantonese (socialization, environment, and chachantengs), naturally I too have many strongly held and often thoroughly justified different opinions.

About Irish Stew.

[FYI: waking up this morning involved a strong beaker of tea made with cardamom pods, some sweetened condensed milk added. No, not "chai". Masala naai-cha. Chai is weak slopkettle you get at Starbucks, along with that vanilla crap.]


Irish Stew, properly made, needs garlic, ginger, hari mirch (green chilies), a piece of cinnamon, coriander powder, dhannia ka patta (cilantro), and a jigger of Sriracha hotsauce, perhaps a dash of Wooster, pinches sugar, nutmeg, and fenugreek, and should be served soupy, so that crusty sourdough bread and/or a mound of rice are appropriate with it.
Fresh sambal on the side, as a condiment.
Plus homemade achar.


Sambal is the absolute sine qua non.


Something else which adds considerable flavour is being permanently pissed-off at one of the Irishmen you know. As one naturally is.
Because he's an idiot.




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