Dinner For Six - Irish Beef Stew
Labels: one dish meals, she cooks
Monday, October 01, 2007
We had an impromptu dinner party on Saturday. I knew I was going to make a stew that evening and it was more like, who can we invite to help us polish the whole lot off? Our victims guests turned out to be Brother-in-law #3 and his two daughters - Niece #1 who just turned seven and Niece #2 who is three. The two girls get on fabulously with Sonny-boy. Especially Niece #1 who's a bit of a tomboy.
So.
The Irish Beef Stew recipe I wanted to try was from Beau Lotus. Her recipe is straightforward and easy to follow. The only eventful thing that transpired was when I asked Hubs to open a bottle of red wine - for a bit of added flavour (Lotus' french influence coming to play). Hubs wanted to do the honours so I let him with incessant reminders of only a little! Only a little, okay? What are you doing??? I said only a LITTLE!!! My dear husband went and poured something like almost one and half cups of wine into the stew. This is just after I emptied a whole can of Guinness Stout into it. Heavens to Murgatroyd! I didn't want this to turn into another case of the French Onion Soup Incident. It didn't fortunately - hours of simmering killed off any alcohol nasties lurking within. What I was left with was an extremely rich and flavourful stew - super for the cold weather.
To round up the meal, I made a Garlic Butter Risotto. I added some pine nuts for extra crunch. I don't know if this dish exist or not because I made it up in my head that morning. I figured it would go very nicely tastewise and it did. And because we all need some fibre, I threw in a salad as well. For the kids, I made Spaghetti in Cabonara Sauce which they attacked with relish. No doubt from the earlier hours of playing, running and screaming (my ears are still ringing).
And what's a dinner party without some bubbly? I set out a bottle of non alcoholic apple flavoured champange for the kids. We like to start them young, don't you know. *heh* The grown-ups had a more sedate bottle of Chilean red. For dessert, we had Panna Cotta with Balsamic Berries, a little something which I prepared earlier on in the day. I will elaborate on it in a future entry because a yummy dessert like this deserves its own header and you will see why.
By the way, even with all our gallant efforts, I was still left with a lot of stew. Actually, almost four large servings which I've since tucked into the refrigerator. I shall resurrect it again as a mid-week meal because according to Lotus, it gets better with time and according to the Dutchess, so do some people.
By the way, this recipe is a definite keeper. Thanks S!
The Dutchess of Cookalot whipped this up at 4:26 am
Hehe, Hubs is also very localised. He can lah, leh and hor like the best of them. He also enjoyed the local food - one of our favourite haunts was Old Airport Road hawker centre.
