Just made the most gorgeous stew with @ 600gm of diced lamd, 600gm of diced beef, carrots, onions stock, etc, all done in a slow cooker after frying the meat and onions for @ 15mins. My daughter thinks it's fab, so does my niece - but it just doesn't taste like my mum's scouse! Like doing Sunday dinner - nobody will ever make it like your mam. Ehhhhhh.....
Here was I expecting a dissection of the local patois. Haven't had scouse since I was a sprog. (A long time ago - before anyone pipes up).
Yeah, but ... the scouse I grew up with was sort of greyish and thick: my stew is nice (if I may say so myself) but it's like a potato stew.
Me neither, and that's the point. I used to think Sunday dinner and scouse must have been piss easy - till I tried it myself. Don't get me wrong, I do a ****ing mean Sunday roast (especially lamb - I had a New Zealand girlfriend who taught me to cook a leg of lamb succulently) , and I evidently do a nice potato lamb stew - but it doesn't taste like scouse.
Think your trying to prepare it in a far to modern way donga, when I was a kid and lived on Vauxy me nan used to make a big pan of Scouse for the family a couple of days a week, didn't mean it was always the same on the two days though. The potatoes, carrots and onions were always in it but when it came to meat it was what ever could be afforded, lamb and if not lamb it was stewing steak or beef mince, beef stock(Oxo cubes), and a bit of gravy mix to thicken it. Sometimes dumplings were added, but as I remember it the spuds were cut big so that they didn't boil away and we're still a munchable size if there was any left the next day.
I don't think people realise the ultimate truth: For all 'We were so poor' stuff, properly made scouse was ****ing gorgeous: That and and a proper cod and chips were a good ****ing diet. I pity rich kids who thought they were eating some sort of delicacy as they grew up -we weren't rich, we werent poor, but we ate ****ing well.
The generation before us had it hard though, but I can't remember going hungry when I was a kid, me uncle worked in Pilks and was loaded, used to give me half a dollar every week when he brought his wife and kids to visit, I was like a ****ing millionaire.
The funny thing is....all the cheap "working class" cuts of meat almost disappeared due to the supermarkets and it not being pretty enough Ironically over past few years they've made a come back through Michelin star chefs realising they are bloody tasty! I'm a casserole/stew/slow cooked meat freak though. Just not much better than meat slow cooked to juiciness with a whole load of veg and spuds thrown in. Hmmmmmm thick gravy goodness. And half a buttered loaf. Or if stew wheaten bread
I know what's wrong. You are making European stew. You want a half pound of mince mate and a half a pound of lamb... not 600g if anything. Brexit will make your stew back into a proper scouse.
I had horsemeat during a school trip to Paris in the 70's. Tangy sort of hot dogs. Don't see what the problem is. They're better off being eaten than tied up and left in a ****ing field in all weathers like the gypos do around here.
I love lamb but it's insanely expensive around here... And the Mrs won't eat it (or duck, or rabbit, or goat, or anything else she thinks is cute). Making one meal with lamb costs as much as making a whole weeks worth of meal (meat anyway) with chicken and beef over here. Consequently, I almost never have it. Hard to find in the US anyway.
That's cause yer cattle ranchers used to shoot any sheep farmer that dared raise their fluffy heads lol