December 31, 2014 New Year’s Eve Irish Guinness Stew with Mashed Potatoes

December 31, 2014 New Year’s Eve  Irish Guinness Stew with Mashed Potatoes

We had tickets for the Party at the Natural History Museum.  Willy wanted to make his famous Irish Stew made with Guinness stout.  We bought a 3 lb.  bag of golden potatoes at Lowe’s for $1.99 and an avocado.

Irish Stew made with Guinness

Willy had bought 2 lbs. of beef stew meat which he braised in butter and olive oil and I chopped 4 cloves of garlic, which he added to the meat with 1 chopped onion.  He then chopped several carrots and two parsnips and a couple of turnips and 4 stalks of celery and put them in with the meat with a can of Guinness and cooked the whole affair in a large pot for several hours. He added ½ lb. of quartered mushrooms at some point.  So this is very much an Irish rendering of Boeuf Bourgogne with the substitution of a 16 oz can of Guinness beer for the French red wine.

Suzette helped Willy make fluffy mashed potatoes with the golden potatoes whipped with melted butter and milk in a Hobart Kitchen Aid mixer.  I heated a ½ loaf of Fano baguette to eat and dip into the stew.

Cynthia and Ricardo arrived around 7:30. Melissa came a bit earlier with a bottle of Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio that we drank as our cocktail. Cynthia and Ricardo arrived a bit later with a cocktail named Vespers, made with vodka and gin and a liquor mixer and a bottle of Ruffino prosecco. I think we drank Acrobat rose of pinot noir with dinner.  

Cynthia and Ricardo, Willy and Melissa

Willy's Irish Stew on a bed of whipped potatoes

 We made plates with spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and one or two ladles full of stew.  I had chilled 2 bottles of Argyle Champagne.  

Since it was a masquerade party, we fetched the bag of masks we bought in New Orleans several years ago and each selected a mask to wear to the party. 

At around 9:00 we all went to the Natural History Museum and Explora for their large New Year’s Eve party.  When we arrived we found the street between and around their perimeters barricaded to contain the paying guests with open braziers and food trucks set in the street separating the two museums.  Soul Kitchen was playing in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum and the Peak radio station was guest DJ’ing dance music at the Explora.  We enjoyed dancing and wandered the Museums’ exhibits until midnight.  A bit after midnight Suzette and Melissa and I left and about fifteen minutes after we returned home, Cynthia and Ricardo arrived.  We drank Prosecco and the bottle of Argyle champagne and welcomed in the New Year on the West Coast.    

Melissa and Suzette in front of  a masked and hatted fossilized T Rex

the dance floor/atrium at the Natural History Museum just before midnight

I finished the gravad lax I had been curing for 36 hours by washing the remaining dry ingredients (sugar, salt, dill weed and black pepper) off the fillets and served a few pieces to the group and then wrapped the two fillets in saran wrap and put them into a gallon freezer bag and put them into the fridge’s meat crisper.

Happy New Year 2015