VENISON SHANK IRISH STEW
My combination of osso buco and Irish Stew. Traditional? Probably not, filling and delicious? YES.
Stick to your ribs, hearty, gelatinous goodness! My Irish Stew is more of an Irish Osso Buco. Using venison shanks vs beef or lamb, but most of the other traditional Irish stew ingredients is a super fun twist to this classic St. Pat dinner. Its crazy how filling this meal is. Especially if you make some soda bread to pair up with it. This meal will stretch a LONG way! Hot tip for leftovers, vac seal and freeze. When you are ready to have it again heat it up in a sous vide machine for a ridiculously easy meal (we love Anova for the vac sealer and sous vide machine).
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My 5 quart dutch oven was a little too small for this cook, thankfully I also have a camp dutch oven to help share the load! The camp version isn’t the easiest on/in a stove with the legs, but definitely manageable! Super fun to cook over coals with out in the woods.
Total prep & cook time ~ 5+ hrs - Makes ~8-10 quarts
Equipment:
Dutch Oven / Slow Cooker
Smoker
Ingredients:
2 venison shanks cut into thirds or quarters
~2 pounds mini potatoes
1 yellow onion
1/2 of a turnip
2-3 large carrots
1 cup shiitake mushrooms
1 celery stalk
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1-2 bouillon cubes and 2-4 cups water or 2-4 cups stock (just enough to cover your ingredients)
1 bottle of Guinness
1/4 cup flour
2-3 tablespoons avocado oil
3-5 tablespoons butter
Directions:
Preheat your smoker to 250º
Lightly oil and dust shank pieces with black pepper, place on smoke for an around an hour, until they have developed some color and a nice amount of smoke.
Preheat your oven to 350º.
Peel carrots & turnip, dice all vegetables to desired size. I like my carrots, turnips, mushrooms and onion on the large size (potatoes as well if you don’t use minis like I did). Celery is better on the small size, garlic should be minced.
Place your dutch oven on your range and preheat to medium. Melt enough butter to sauté your onion, mushroom and celery, cook 5 min and add garlic & tomato paste and cook 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
Pull shanks from smoker and dust in flour, quickly sear them and then add the Guinness and enough stock to cover. (I added my potatoes, carrots and turnips at this point in the photos, but overcooked them, so ignore the pics at this phase..)
Cover and place in oven for 3-5 hours, until the shanks are falling apart and the connective tissue has melted.
Add salt & pepper to taste, carrots, turnips and potatoes and top off with more HOT stock if necessary. Place back in oven for another hour or so, until carrots and potatoes are tender.
Ladle out into a bowl and enjoy!
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Hot Tips:
I like to tie up my cut shanks so the meat does not fall off, but in this application if you aren’t planning to serve on the bone its not necessary.
Pull out the marrow from the bones at the end of the cook! Its an amazing rich flavor bomb that you DO NOT want to throw away.
Mix and match your vegetables to suit what your family likes!
While your shanks are cooking make a loaf of soda bread! I used THIS RECIPE. Honestly any bread will do, but the texture and sweetness of a traditional soda bread goes REALLY well with this stew!
Save your vegetable skins/greens/peels for stock or feed your compost bin, don’t trash this gold!
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Yeti is by far our favorite cooler brand. Outside of keeping things cold we love to rest briskets & pulled pork in ours.
