Earl Cooks Irish Stew (sort of) for "Turkey" on St. Paddy's Day

My wife, (a.k.a "Turkey"), has a BUNCH of Irish ancestors. Her mom is an Irish researcher and they are proud of their heritage, so St. Patrick's Day is a big deal. Usually I do corned beef and cabbage, but "Turkey" said she didn't care for the fattiness of most of the corned beef briskets, so I started researching other Irish dishes I could make. My research led me to Pork Irish Stew! I had all of the ingredients (I thought), so I went to work.

—I started with 2 large country style pork ribs from the freezer that I had frozen and vacuum packed previously. I defrosted them and removed them from the vacuum sealed bag and cut them up into 1 inch chunks, which I then place in my cast iron dutch oven to brown, seasoned with just salt & pepper and some olive or vegetable oil in the bottom. 

—Once browned, remove from dutch oven and place in a bowl while other items are prepared. Here is where I had to deviate from the recipe, because it called for carrots, and I thought I had some, but I found out I had none. But I did have another root veggie to use...Golden Beets. 

—Cut the beet greens, soak, and then scrub to remove the soil. Trim and peel to remove the thick skin and slice, dice or julienne into chunks about the size of  your cubed pork. Gold beets are a great choice because they have all the flavor of beets without the red which can discolor everything. Start by sauteing onions in butter with salt and pepper 7-10 minutes until softened. Add minced garlic and saute until fragrant. Add 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour and stir for about a minute. Add 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar. The next one is a real deviation. The recipe called for Guinness. I don't drink and don't even have anything close to that, so I called an audible. I poured a cup of cream soda, yes that cream soda, in. To that I added canned chicken stock. Now add the beets and browned pork to the dutch oven and cook at a low boil until almost tender. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

TOP: Add browned pork and beets to stock & onions
Bottom: Add Brussels Sprouts to beets and pork

—And now the cabbage! Yes, I know I said Corned beef and cabbage wasn't very authentic, but Irish stew DOES have cabbage. But I am not using the traditional. Rather I am using baby cabbage. "What?", you say, you have "never heard of baby cabbage". Well it comes from Belgium and is more commonly called Brussels Sprouts. I try to have Trader Joe's frozen Brussels Sprouts on hand always, and I do have them today. The package says they are from Belgium, so not quite Irish in origin, but they definitely are cabbage. I used the whole bag but they were quite small. If you have larger sprouts the recipe calls for 12 cut in half. Pour them into the dutch oven. It doesn't take long for them to cook.

—And now I must backtrack some. The recipe called for mashed potatoes as a base for the stew. I chose to make mine with my soon-to-be-famous mashed cauliflower. I start with riced cauliflower from the frozen section which I cook WELL. It must be softened to be mash-able. Drain the liquid and add 2 tablespoons butter and half a cup of milk. Add a half cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (Irish of course). Use a hand masher to mash and blend completely and place in the bottom of the bowl. Top with the completed stew and season with salt and pepper and a nice daub of butter. Happy St. Paddy's Day 🍀


The link below is for the recipe I I used from chef John with video:
Chef John's Irish Pork Stew with Baby Cabbage