Piss Easy Beery Stovies

As submitted by MooCow_Byter

This is a bastardised version of the traditional Scottish meal, and is lovely and filling with a smooth, rich gravy. Good for cold nights or comfort food.

Don't worry too much about the exact quantities of ingredients. The ones given will serve several people, depending on how greedy they are, but you can easily scale up or down.

You will need:
4-6 Potatoes. The big, floury, baking kind.
Minced Beef. 800g is good.
An onion, or two if you want.
Oil, butter or fat.
A can of beer. Lager gives best results.
2 stock cubes. I prefer chicken, but beef or vegetable are fine, too.
Seasoning - pepper, chopped parsley, herbs, whatever you have.
A big pan with a lid.
Optional: button mushrooms. I like them, but they aren't essential.

How to do it:
Heat the oil in the pan and add the chopped onion. Cook it until it's soft, but not brown. In the meantime peel the potatoes and slice them thinly. You might want to chop them in half first if they're especially big. Put them in with the onions and stir so that everything is covered in oil. If you're using mushrooms, chop them up and add them now, too.

Put the lid on the pan and leave it on a low heat for ten minutes or so. Then add the beer, and crumble in the stock cubes. Now cover the pan and cook on the lowest heat you can.

Once the potatoes are cooked (probably about half an hour, check back and stir from time to time), add the mince and mix it all up. Season to taste, and turn up the heat a bit so that you have a slow simmer. Leave the whole thing for at least 45 minutes, although anything up to a couple of hours is fine.

You can serve with bread or oatcakes if you like, but it's fine by itself, too.