Beef Stew Cook-Off

Today at LIFE we had Patrick Gunnels, Claire's son, and Huyen Doan and Jill Vu face off for a mulitcultural beef stew cookoff. Patrick, who has Irish heritage, made a rockin' Irish Stew and Huyen and Jill did a nuanced and flavorful Vietnamese stew. A cornucopia of spices and herbs made this Vietnamese concoction delightful. Patrick added a rich cabernet wine and some extra stout Guinness beer to give his stew its Irish twist. Everyone had a taste of each recipe and both were so good, we had a statistical dead heat.

Patrick also has French roots, but once he looked at Julia Child's intricate recipe, he said, heck no, I'm making Irish stew, a recipe taught to him by his best friend, Kashan, a Pakistani.

Recipes for Irish & Vietnamese Stews (pdf)