Fergal's Irish Stew

We're staying over at our friends tonight and Fergal is making his famous Irish stew. It's a variation on a Ballymaloe recipe. This is how you do it:

Serves 6
1.5kg cubed lamb
2kg potatoes, cubed
750g carrots, cut into chunky pieces
4 onions, cut into chunky pieces
1 large swede, cubed
few sprigs of fresh thyme
3 litres or so of fresh lamb stock
chopped fresh parsley

1 Trim the excess fat off the lamb and cook in a large cassrole dish to melt the fat. Lift out the solids and discard. Add the lamb cubes and cook for a couple of minutes to seal. Lift out the meat.

2 Layer the vegetables and the lamb back into the pan ensuring an even distribution and seasoning with salt, pepper and thyme as you go. Pour over enough stock to cover then bring up to the boil, cover and simmer for a couple of hours.

3 Skim off any excess fat from the surface. Stir in the parsley, check the seasoning then ladle into bowls and serve.