The Pub’s Irish Stew Lives On

When thinking of ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, my partner, Maxwell, and I revisited some of our favorite dishes from our May 2025 trip to Ireland as well as influential local Irish recipes. As Maxwell is the chef of our household in Indianapolis, he set out to recreate the Irish beef stew once on the menu at The Pub, a beloved on Evansville’s East Side. From 1984 to 2021, Larry “Bubbles” Pollock owned The Pub, and he enthusiastically offered up his recipe when [Evansville Living] asked if he’d consider sharing it. Maxwell remembers his parents taking him to The Pub for meals when he was young, so this dish holds some personal nostalgia, and I was happy to be the taste-testing beneficiary of it! 

We found all but one ingredient at our local Fresh Thyme Market. The recipe calls for sherry, but not the cooking sherry that includes added salt. We made a separate trip to a liquor store and came home with the drinkable, drier kind of sherry. One notable ingredient commonly found in Irish stews that was missing from Pollock’s recipe is Guinness or stout beer.

The stew’s preparation was very simple; Maxwell only needed to chop an onion and crush cloves of garlic, as the recipe’s other vegetables are canned. I admit that made me skeptical, as canned vegetables aren’t the norm in today’s home-cooking world, but in the end, you could hardly tell the difference. If you are partial to fresh vegetables, Maxwell recommends adding the carrots and potatoes into the stew much earlier than the recipe calls for so that they cook completely.

The salt content is a delicate balance in this stew recipe. Since both the beef broth and canned vegetables contain added salt, Maxwell only needed salt to taste. If you choose to make a version with fresh vegetables, it could likely handle more salt added. We made the stew in an eight-quart Dutch oven, which was ideal since it retained heat well and we could leave the stew to simmer for a while. And although Irish stew is traditionally served with soda bread, the baguette rolls we paired with it in a pinch did the trick. 

With this recipe, it is important to give yourself enough cooking time for the flavors to develop — we recommend budgeting at least three hours. I give this advice with love, as ultimately we ended up eating dinner at 11 p.m. Nonetheless, the stew turned out delicious; the sherry instead of stout beer gave it a lighter color and brighter flavor, and the myriad ingredients deepened the flavor. And recreating this recipe was a great way to pay tribute to a beloved local restaurant. 

Irish stew

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Bubbles Pollock’s Irish Stew from The Pub
Original recipe scaled down for 4-6 servings

Ingredients
1.75lb extra lean stew beef
14.5oz canned sliced new potatoes
14oz  canned crushed tomatoes
12oz canned sliced carrots
32oz beef broth
2 Tbsp butter
¾ cup canned peas with pearl onions
1 large yellow onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
¾ cup dry sherry
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp ground thyme

Instructions

1. Pat the beef dry.
2. Preheat the Dutch oven, then add a tablespoon of oil (we used olive oil) to thinly coat the bottom.
3. Brown beef in two portions, not all at once. Brown half the beef in the Dutch oven for 6-8 minutes, and don’t disturb it on one side to build the crust. Remove this half of the beef and set aside, then repeat with the second half of beef. 
4. Add all the beef to the pot, plus crushed garlic. (We recommend adding the garlic now so it doesn’t burn.) 
5. In a separate pan, sauté on medium-low heat the chopped yellow onion with butter. Make sure not to burn either ingredient.
6. To simplify, combine dry ingredients with room temperature beef broth, then whisk into a slurry and strain to avoid flour clumping.
7. Add beef broth, onion-butter mixture, and slurry to the Dutch oven along with the can of crushed tomatoes, sherry, and bay leaves.
8. Bring it up to a boil, then down to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 75 minutes. Stir every 15 minutes to distribute cooking to all the vegetables, and separate any that become attached to the bottom of the Dutch oven. 
9. Add canned potatoes and carrots including the juice, simmer for an additional 45 minutes, stirring at the same cadence. 
10. Add peas and pearl onions and cook for 15 more minutes. 
11. Remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes. 
12. Serve with soda bread and enjoy!

Former Newburgh resident and Reitz Memorial High School alumna Meghan Stratton is the Global Lead for Brand and Content at Allison Transmission in Indianapolis.

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