Keef Cooks logo
British food-lover Keef shows you how to cook amazing food with easy to follow recipes and videos. So stop wasting your time and money on takeaways or supermarket ready meals, and Get Cooking!

Scouse

Introduction & method

Scouse is the 'national dish' of Liverpool and Merseyside. Adapted from the Lobskause of Norwegian sailors in the city, it gave the denizens their nickname. It's a simple stew of mutton (and/or beef), carrots and potatoes, and is always served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot.

Scouse Recipe

This is essentially a peasant dish, so the meat would traditionally be the cheapest cuts of mutton - bony, fatty, scraggy. These days it gets made with lean lamb or beef, but I reckon the scraggy mutton gives the best flavour.

Cut the meat into chunks, peel and chop the onion, and throw them into a big pan with the stock and the pepper. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, cover with a lid and simmer for one and a half to two hours.

After this time, peel the spuds and carrots, chop into bite-sized chunks and add them to the meat. Bring to the boil again, turn down the heat, cover with a lid and simmer for another hour. Alternatively, you could cook everything in a pressure cooker for about 30 minutes, or in a crock pot / slow cooker for 8-10 hours.

Now add salt and white pepper. Taste it and add more salt or pepper if required. You could also add a splash of Worcester Sauce for a bit of sharpness. Your gravy should be fairly thick.

Serve with a dollop of pickled red cabbage or beetroot, and maybe some crispy bread. Simple, hearty and wholesome, just like the Scousers!



The video above is from the Keef Cooks YouTube channel. Click here to see the video recipe of Scouse on YouTube.

 

Ingredients & Info



 450 grams mutton or beef
 1 medium onion
 3 potatoes
 2 carrots
 1 litre beef stock
 half a tsp salt
 half a tsp white pepper
 1 splash Worcester sauce
 
PLUS

Pickled red cabbage or beetroot to serve.


UNITS:
Metric
US Customary/Imperial

Makes 4 servings
Prep time: 10 minutes.
Cooking time: 3 hours.
Total time: 3 hours 10 minutes.