This simple Irish Lamb and Potato Stew is cooked in a dutch oven and is warm and comforting during cold weather. Sweet potatoes and dark beer are added for amazing depth of flavor, with no flour needed as a thickener. Easily adaptable to be paleo/whole30 compliant!
Trim the lamb pieces of any large pieces of fat. Season the lamb liberally with salt and pepper.
Heat the oil (2 tablespoons) in a large, heavy pot (such as a Dutch oven) and brown lamb for 2-3 minutes on each side, until it develops nice color. Make sure the pieces aren’t touching each other - you will likely need to do this in 2-3 batches. Remove lamb to a plate or shallow bowl.
After all the lamb has browned, add the onions and a pinch of salt and pepper to the pot (there should be enough oil/fat in the pot still, but if there isn't, just add a little more). Cook on medium heat until the onions have softened and browned, stirring occasionally, about 5-10 minutes. Scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pot as you cook. If browned bits are not easily removed, add a little bit of the beef broth to the pot to help deglaze it.
Add the beef broth (4 cups), and dark beer (1 can/ ~2 cups) to the pot. Add the lamb and any juices back into the pot, along with the dried thyme (1 teaspoon). Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for about 90 minutes, or until lamb is starting to easily break apart when prodded with a wooden spoon (this may take more or less time depending on the size of the pieces or how tough the meat is to begin with).
Add the carrots and potatoes to the pot and stir together. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and cook for another 15-20 minutes, or until all vegetables are soft enough to pierce easily with a fork.
Optional: To thicken the stew, remove about 1 - 1½ cups worth of the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots to a blender. Ladle a cup or two of the broth into the blender. Blend until smooth, then stir back into the pot.
Season the stew to taste. This stew needs a lot of salt and pepper, so if it seems to be lacking in something, it's likely lacking in salt (see notes). Stir in the fresh parsley (2 tablespoons), if using. Serve, garnishing each bowl with more parsley, if desired.
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Notes
Slow Cooker instructions: Follow steps 1-3 of the recipe for trimming and seasoning the lamb, browning it in a large pot, and cooking the onions while scraping up the browned parts by deglazing.* Then, add the cooked onions, browned lamb and its juices, carrots, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, beef broth, beer, and thyme to your crockpot, and some more salt and pepper if you think you need it (see recipe note on salt). Cook on low for 7 - 8 hours or high for 3 - 4 hours, or until lamb is very tender and vegetables are soft. Proceed with thickening the broth as instructed, and stir in fresh parsley and season to taste. *If you want to make you life really easy, you can skip the browning of the meat and pre-cooking the onions - the flavor won't be quite as good, but it might just be worth the sacrifice for an easier slow cooker assembly.
Instant Pot Instructions: Brown the meat in batches in the oil in the pressure cooker on the "sauté" function. Remove meat to a shallow bowl or plate. Cook the onions in the same way. Turn off the sauté function. Add the lamb and its juices back to the pot, along with the broth, beer, thyme, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and carrots. Cover your instant pot and set to "manual, high" for 30 minutes. When it's done, allow the pressure to release naturally for about 10 minutes. Then quick release the pressure and remove the lid. Proceed with thickening the broth if desired as written in the original recipe instructions. Stir in the parsley and season to taste.
For both the pressure cooker and slow cooker instructions, the vegetables, especially the sweet potatoes, may be a bit mushier than they would if adding later on in the stovetop method. It may be worthwhile to omit the sweet potatoes in favor of more white potatoes if you think this will bother you. It may, however, help thicken the broth without needing to do a separate puree!
The amount of salt you need to add will depend on how salty your broth is, which can vary quite a bit depending on the brand. I prefer to use low sodium broth, so I can add salt myself.
Beef stew meat may be used instead of lamb. It's often cheaper and more readily available than lamb.
Leftovers may be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for about 3 days. You can freeze the leftovers if you want, but the texture of the potatoes may change (that's never stopped me before!). If the leftover stew turns too thick, you can just add some water to thin it out when reheating.