Serves 8
Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes || Active time: 45 minutes
Oh my shamrocks, this is good. A fluffy potato biscuit soaking up a deeply savory gravy that is at once mysterious and familiar. The stout really gives this dish an allure, and two kinds of mushrooms make it meaty and earthy and just umami like nobody’s business. And ya know, for a special occasion, it’s not tooooo fussy.
I’m going to give you a few options here for the filling: one with frozen thawed tofu and one with straight-up kidney beans. I enjoyed both, with a slight preference for kidney beans only. My boyfriend, however, vastly prefered the tofu version. And he’s Scottish. And Scotland is near Ireland. So, you know, he’s kind of an authority.
I think it would also be great with some sauteed seitan or a few seitan sausages. But I’ll shut up now, and get to the recipe. Happy St. Paddy’s everyone!
UPDATED: I changed the broth to 3 cups after a few people said theirs looked a lot thinner than mine.
Notes
~ For the tofu variation:
Omit 1/2 of the kidney beans. Freeze and thaw a 14 oz block of extra firm tofu. Press tofu to remove excess water (wrap in a kitchen towel and place a heavy book and a few cans on top, for an hour or so.) Cut 1/2 inch dice and add to the pot when you add the beans.
~ This recipe calls for “leftover mashed potatoes” but you may not have any laying around! To make about the cup called for here, microwave a russet potato, and mash with 1/4 cup unsweetened vegan milk, 2 tablespoons olive oil and a pinch of salt. Let cool, then measure and use!
~ Stout is often processed with animal products (namely, isinglass, from fish) so check out Barnivore to see if a brand is vegan-friendly or not.
~ If you don’t have a stovetop-to-oven pot, then simply make the stew, place it in a 9×13 casserole and form the biscuits into a rectangle instead of a circle. Slice and arrange them on top of the casserole and bake as directed.
~ If you’re feeling lazy, or just want a simpler weeknight meal, make the stew portion of the recipe, and leave off the biscuits. Serve with some nice crusty bread.
Ingredients
For the stew:
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced medium
4 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 lb carrots, peeled, sliced into thin half moons
1 1/4 cups stout beer
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Fresh black pepper (a lot!)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups cooked kidney beans – 2 15 oz cans rinsed & drained [see note for tofu version]
For the biscuits:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup leftover mashed potatoes [see note on leftover mashed potatoes]
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cold water
Directions
Make the stew:
Place porcinis in a bowl that’s large enough to contain the 4 cups vegetable broth. If the porcinis look large, tear them into bite sized pieces. Boil the vegetable broth and pour it over the porcinis. Cover with a plate to keep hot, and prep everything you need for the recipes. This will soften them and make the recipe a bit faster.
Preheat a stovetop-to-oven dutch oven over medium heat. (See notes for non-dutch oven directions.) Saute onions and a pinch of salt in oil until until translucent, 4 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, for about a minute, until fragrant.
Add sliced cremini mushroom (not the porcinis yet), celery, thyme and rosemary (crush herbs in your fingers) and saute for 5 minutes, until mushrooms release moisture and brown slightly.
Add carrots, stout, tomato paste, fresh black pepper and salt and bring to a boil. The liquid should reduce in about 3 minutes.
Add porcinis and vegetable broth, cover and bring to a full boil for 5 minutes or so, to finish cooking the porcinis.
Once porcinis are soft, in a measuring cup, mix the flour into one cup of cold water with a fork until no lumps are left.
Slowly add the water/flour to the pot, mixing well as you go. Let thicken for 5 minutes or so. Add the kidney beans, turn heat off and cover to keep warm. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 425F and make the biscuits.
Make the biscuits:
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, use a fork to mix together mashed potatoes, olive oil and water. It should be very loose and mushy.
Make a well in the center of the flour and add the potato mixture. Mix with a fork until a stiff dough starts to form, then turn the dough on to a clean surface and knead a few times to smooth out. Flatten into a disc 2 inches smaller than the pot with the stew in it. Slice like a tic tac toe board into 9 pieces and arrange the pieces on top of the stew.
Bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned on top, and bubbling up thickly around the biscuits.
Let sit for 15 minutes or so, then serve!
I’m don’t know why, but I can’t get your recipes to print anymore. All I get is the introductory paragraphs. I’ve never had this problem before. Did you change something?
This recipe looks amazing and I’d love to be able to print it.
Aww man. You’re right! I’m going to see if there’s anyway to fix it. You probably know this but just in case, you can copy and paste the page into a text editor to print.
The recipe looks great, but I never expected that moving to Ireland would give me such strong feelings about how to spell a nickname. Even so, it’s “Paddy” (short for Patrick), not “Patty” (short for Patricia). Please spread the word!
Haha, sure thing!
This sounds incredible!!! I don’t know how you do this…but ALL your recipes are incredible winners and I’m surely going to be making this and most likely eating the entire batch myself. I don’t tend to share well with others…..
My son cannot have tomato paste, sauce, etc. What would you recommend using instead?
Do you find that the biscuit recipe works well when you swap out the flour for a gluten free flour mix? Some do just fine – others don’t. Thanks!!!
Hum! Beer? Idon’t like beer. Can i replace it with something else?
Thank’s
Can’t wait to make this – it looks incredible! I can’t find the oven temperature, though.
Thanks for catching that! I’ve added it to the recipe. It’s 425 F.
We keep a sober house. What’s a good swap for stout?
Veggie broth and a tablespoon of miso, maybe?
This looks amazing!! Thank you!
Oh that’s GOOD! This recipe transcends meridan lines and heralds back to The Old Country and images of dragon slaying (or at least Crac in the local 😉 ) hearty fare and even we vegans can wield a heavy sword if we bloody well want to! 😉
Hello and thank you for this wonderful sounding recipe! Quick question- if I want to just make the biscuits by themselves, should I bake for 20 min, greased pan, 400 degrees? What do you think? Thanks so much!
I think that they’d take only 15 minutes or so without the stew. The biscuit recipe doubles well, too.
Oooohhh, my partner is brewing stout RIGHT NOW. Will definitely be making this in a few weeks!
OMG! I saw this picture yesterday and went looking for your recipe. When I could not find it I said to myself “Don’t panic she’ll post it soon”. Thank You for posting it so quickly! I am so making it tonight!
This is exactly what my dreary, shortened Sunday needed. I had everything on hand, and this was the perfect excuse to use my home-brewed, espresso-chocolate stout. I also had fresh shiitake mushrooms I needed to use up, so I added them along with the cremini. The results were glorious. Thank you, Isa, for yet another outstanding recipe.
The ingredient list for the stew states : “2 Tablespoons olive oil, divided,” but in the instructions for the stew refer to the oil only once – “Saute onions and a pinch of salt in oil until until translucent.” I always cut the amount of oil I use in any recipe, so only used 1 Tbs, regardless, but I was a bit confused by the “divided” reference
Hmm! No idea why I wrote that. Fixed 🙂
Urp. I just polished off a huge bowl, and it was delicious. I did not have any potatoes handy, so I just used a basic baking powder biscuit dough for the topping. We have enough left for two more huge helpings tomorrow, and I am guessing that the flavors will have melded and mellowed such that it will be even better by then!
Yum! Cant wait this is definately on the table for date night! Btw found out that (my fav!) xtra stout is vegan even though thier regular is not
Made this tonight and it was amazing! The microwaving of the potato worked great. I added some sautéed seitan which I thought went really well with the earthiness of mushrooms. The biscuits were sooo fluffy and yummy!
Ohhhh this looks delicious! Can I leave the sugar out of the biscuits?
This sounds great. I can’t eat flour products, so I think I would top the stew with mashed potatoes for an Irish shepherd’s pie.
Okay so i have this huge St. Paddys Day meal planned, with all sorts of stuff… but now I feel like it would be incomplete without this! It looks so delicious, I don’t think I’ll be able to pass it up 😉
I made this today and just finished gobbling it all up! This was spectacular!!! Very hearty and satisfying. Flavors were amazing! I made the recipe as is without the tofu. Only change I made was that I halved the the recipe to serve 4 instead of 8. My non-vegan husband enjoyed it as well. Thanks for these great recipes!
This looks wonderful – it’s great to find vegan recipes that look really warming and substantial. Will definitely make this at the weekend if the weather doesn’t warm up!
Delicious recipe! I made it tonight and scarfed a good portion of the amazing stuff, burning the roof of my mouth in the process. Definitely going to be a keeper- it’s so easy too!
Just made this and it was SO good. I may have just polished off 3 servings…
this looks fabulous! would it be ok to make the filling in advance and then the potato biscuit topping the day you plan to eat it? i’m hosting a pi day potluck tomorrow night and this looks perfect, but i might not have time to do both steps after work tomorrow night…
I think so! Just warm the stew before adding the biscuits.
I am cooking lunch for a bunch of devotees ( hindu) who can’t eat mushrooms or drink beer. I have read the q and a on stout . Would you recommend replacing the mushrooms with seitan ?
FYI the print button is only printing the intro, not the recipe (at least for me).
I know, I need to get that fixed. Thanks!
A local restaurant in my town of Bend, OR has this as the special tonight!!! I was going to make it this weekend, but maybe I will cave and go today- check it out: http://www.btbsbend.com/Todays%20Specials%20and%20Menu%20for%20Website.pdf
Wow, how was it?
This recipe looks delicous and I want to try it! Could you tell me how high you are suppose to heat the oven??
Sharon
Stout is no different than any other beer, except that about 1-5% of the grist is roasted barley. No animal product is used or needed. Only a small percentage of breweries in the world, and most of that British, use isinglass for ANY of their beers (stout or otherwise), and only when producing cask-conditioned ales. In fact, there are more wineries worldwide using egg whites to clarify their wines than there are breweries employing isinglass.
I would listen to what the brewing companies say about using isinglass. If they say they do, then I have no reason to doubt them, and their communications are right there on Barnivore.
I am going to make this Sunday! Can i use my cast iron skillet for my stove top to oven pan?Its the 9 inch one.
It should be able to fit!
Made this tonight and it came out very soupy. Very tasty but very soupy. I even added arrowroot after the flour didn’t thicken things up enough. What did I do wrong?
The biscuits were A.Mazing! Super easy and sooooooo good!
Oh no! It’s definitely not supposed to be soupy. I guess enough of the liquid didn’t reduce, or perhaps the heat wasn’t high enough to thicken? Let me see if anyone else had that problem, and the answer could simply be to use less liquid at first and add more if needed.
Baa-BAMM!! That was awesome. I made it last night and 2 of 3 kids loved it. My middle daughter went back for 4ths!!!!
With regard to Stout beer, I wanted to mention that (conveniently) most micro-brewed stouts are vegan and come in single 650ml bottles; I’d recommend any of the varieties from Rogue or other breweries from Oregon. Also, the use of isinglass is “traditional” (which is probably why newer breweries don’t use it). Lastly, Stout that is unfiltered/unclarified is most likely vegan because clarification is what isinglass is used for.
Anyway, I’m going to make this tonight and am really looking forward to it.
Amazing!!
what’s a decent sized dutch oven to use? i’ve never owned one before… but this is yet ANOTHER recipe on my list that calls for it… so i’m planning to just bite the bullet and get one this afternoon. I just don’t know what size is reasonable! Thanks.
5.5 quart is pretty standard. It’s really worth the investment, you’ll have it for life!
Wow. I really want to try this. However, my kids will NOT eat mushrooms. Anyone got any ideas how I should replace them? Or should I just make it without them?
The mushrooms are really most of the flavoring in here. I’m not sure what they’d be like without!
Made this tonight–absolutely delicious! Mine looks exactly like the picture (except I used the 13×9 pan :-). Early St. Paddy’s Day celebration! It did take me longer than a hour, however, but I just may be a bit slow in the kitchen :-).
For Patricia Sjöberg & anyone else trying to feed a mushroom hater: My husband runs from mushrooms but he’s been eating them without complaint for years because I puree them. In fact he usually tells me that he love whenever I’ve secretly included in a dish.
Try sautéing the creminis on their own, and then puree with them with the leftover porcinis in a little of the veggie broth, then add where the recipe says “Add porcinis and vegetable broth, cover…”
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice!
Heads up – I’m nearly 90 minutes into the prepping and cooking (the stew is made)- the veggie washing, peeling, measuring, opening cans, and following the instructions exactly, and am just now getting to make-the-biscuits part (no, I’m not drinking the Stout as I go! I am taking a few pix). City kitchen space, so I do need to stop to clear out the sink. I’m an experienced cook, with a basic supply of cooking utensils. This will be a much longer active time for me than 40 min.
Sorry about that! I always time myself and then give a little extra to the prep times, accounting for the fact that I’m really fast. But the difference might be that I prep as I go. So while the onions are sautéing I prep the mushrooms, etc. I also measure out all the ingredients for other components, so while the stew is simmering, measure out the biscuit ingredients. Hopefully that helps anyone else attempting the recipe!
Made this today–it was delicious! It took me about 45 minutes of prep time. I rolled the potato biscuit dough out and used a biscuit cutter to make biscuits, which I then placed across the top of the stew before baking. The only issue we had with it is that it came out very soupy! I even added some cornstarch to thicken it, but it didn’t do the trick. I think next time I will use 2 cups of broth, rather than 3. Still, even with the soupiness, it was truly delicious!
This was fantastic! 5 stars! It took me about an hour of prep before sticking it in the oven. My husband is also a mushroom hater- it’s the texture not the taste- so i finely dice them for recipes and it’s not a problem. We both loved it and are looking forward to our leftovers!
Ok, seems lots of people are having that issue. I will increase the times! Thanks for your feedback.
Wow and Thank you. That is all.
This was great! I think I used the old version that had four cups of broth vs. the updated three. I ended up putting a bit of cornstarch in to thicken it up. It was a bit soupy, but still delicious, filling and very comfort-food.
I was thinking it would be a nice one to try in the crockpot after sauteing the onion and whatnot on the stove. I was thinking maybe to try just adding potatoes to make it a stew, but the biscuits were delish.
I used button mushrooms and dried shitake. I couldn’t find the others, and I had these on hand. It was great.
I am at high altitude and decreased the baking powder to a little over 2 teaspoons (common high altitude tweak to decrease leavening agents). I decreased the temp to 400 (another high altitude adjustment). I cooked it for 25 minutes. Came out great.
This came out wonderful! I went the miso sub for beer route. I also did sweet potato for the biscuits…heavenly. Didn’t bother with the sugar when using sweet potato and thought they were wonderful. Nice consistency and everything. I agree with others, it is easy to eat A LOT of servings. Definitely a recipe for the rotation.
Made this tonight and it was great! Took me 2 hrs from start to prep everything to when it had cooled and was ready to eat. I followed the original version to use 4 cups of broth and it was a little more soupy (reference to 4 cups still in recipe instructions). My only prob was I thought I had a 5qt Dutch oven but clearly not – it was packed to the brim! In advance I placed the pot on a foil lined cookie sheet when it was ready to bake as it predictably spilled over 🙁 thank goodness! The biscuits were delish too! Loved the flavour – thx for a great recipe for st. paddy’s day!