Beef Soup

Beef Soup

This beef soup recipe has an interesting ancestor - Irish Stew. Originally Irish stew was a complete meal made from low-cost locally available ingredients. The meat was usually from sheep. It was often called lamb stew, but I doubt the meat came from lambs and was probably from sheep too old for producing wool. Cutting the meat into small pieces and cooking for some time was a necessity. Potatoes were also a major ingredient along with carrots from the home garden. The Irish immigrants changed their traditional recipe and beef often replaced lamb or mutton. If you wish to change the following soup recipe to a thicker stew dish often served on a plate rather than in dish add a few tablespoons of dried potato flakes. The Gaelic term for this dish is "stobhach gaelach."

Ingredients

3 lbs. chuck steak diced into 1/2 cubes

4 slices of bacon

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tsp. pepper

2 tsp. salt

3 medium onions diced

1 8oz. can tomato paste

2 12oz. cans of Guinness stout. If you do not have stout or a similar dark beer, use beef broth.

3 cups diced carrots

1 can of peas

1/2 cup of olive oil

3 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

1 teaspoon Italian spices

1 teaspoon garlic powder


Place the bacon and olive oil in the pot or dutch oven and brown. Add the beef then the other ingredients after the meat starts to brown. Slow cook for at least 60 minutes.


I often serve this dish with thick slices of sourdough bread or garlic bread.