Stafforshire Beef Lobby - a great winter warmer

[Ffin72]

I've just had a couple of bowls of lobby, a traditional Staffordshire dish, and can't find any mention of it on the site, so I thought I'd share the recipe.

Serves 4

450g/1lb stewing or braising steak - fat removed and cut into small chunks
A handful pearl barley (optional)
1 onion diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed (optional)
4 potatoes diced
1 swede diced (the big orange fleshed ones not the little white ones)
4 celery sticks, chopped
4 diced carrots
Beef stock

Put the meat, onion and pearl barley in a large pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently on a very low heat for 40 mins.
Stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking.

Meanwhile peel and chop the vegetables to dice of a similar size - small or chunky, however you prefer.

Add the vegetables to the pan and top up with stock to cover the vegetables.
Cook at a low simmer for approximately 60 mins or until everything is softly cooked and the meat is tender. Cook for 2 hours+ for really tender meat (the longer the better!) or cook in a slow cooker. Continue to stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of pan.

Season to taste.

Serve in big bowls with chunky bread. HP Sauce is a nice addition, or a little vinegar

Being a "chuck-in" recipe, feel free to add/substitute cabbage, turnip, parsnip, nettles etc.

 

[Tadpole]

My mother only ever used the ‘Nub end’ of the Sunday roast, minced/diced, and there was nary a pound of that. She’d fry off some bacon or bellyfat, for taste. The vegetables was whatever she had or what came from the allotment (never parsnips as they were kept for cattle food ). Stock was made from the Jelly under the beef dripping. That and a door stop was snap for us kids. And supper for my dad. It was on the stove from Wednesday to Friday, topped up with barley on Friday, to make it go further. Friday tea always scratch.

 

[Rod Paradise]

Thanks, I think I might try that instead of my usual stew/steak pie.

 

[sandbender]

Beef is surprisingly pricey over here, but that looks tasty so I may give it a go. Cheers.

 

[Martyn]

I've just had a couple of bowls of lobby, a traditional Staffordshire dish, and can't find any mention of it on the site, so I thought I'd share the recipe.

Serves 4

450g/1lb stewing or braising steak - fat removed and cut into small chunks
A handful pearl barley (optional)
1 onion diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed (optional)
4 potatoes diced
1 swede diced (the big orange fleshed ones not the little white ones)
4 celery sticks, chopped
4 diced carrots
Beef stock

Put the meat, onion and pearl barley in a large pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently on a very low heat for 40 mins.
Stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking.

Meanwhile peel and chop the vegetables to dice of a similar size - small or chunky, however you prefer.

Add the vegetables to the pan and top up with stock to cover the vegetables.
Cook at a low simmer for approximately 60 mins or until everything is softly cooked and the meat is tender. Cook for 2 hours+ for really tender meat (the longer the better!) or cook in a slow cooker. Continue to stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of pan.

Season to taste.

Serve in big bowls with chunky bread. HP Sauce is a nice addition, or a little vinegar

Being a "chuck-in" recipe, feel free to add/substitute cabbage, turnip, parsnip, nettles etc.

You're making me want some.

I usually make it exactly the same except never with garlic (that inner traditional arrr kid!!). I usually put a parsnip in and always pearl barley. Yum. Serve in a big bowl with ripped up chunks of crusty bread for dipping.

 

[Ffin72]

never with garlic (that inner traditional arrr kid!!)

According to Wikipedia:

"In the 18th and 19th centuries Liverpool, being a major seaport, found itself inundated with foreign seamen, especially Norwegians, looking for a berth on any ship. There is still a Scandinavian Seamen's Church in Liverpool built in the 19th century.[1] Scandinavian seamen's churches proliferated in many British ports in the late 19th century,[2] and it is therefore probable that these incomers brought their recipes to Liverpool.

A "pan of scouse" became a common meal in working class Liverpool. A thickened stew, usually of mutton or lamb with vegetables[3] slow cooked to tenderise cheap cuts of meat, it takes its name from the Norwegian for stew, "lapskaus". The shortened and anglicised version of this Norwegian word is "scouse" and is part of a genre of slang terms which refer to people by stereotypes of their dietary habits, e.g. Limey, Rosbif (American and French slang respectively for the English), and Kraut (an English colloquial ethnonym for a German).

Scouse is still a popular dish in Liverpool, where it is a staple of local pub and café menus, although recipes vary greatly and often include ingredients which are inconsistent with the thrifty roots of the dish. In its short form, "Scouse", the name eventually came into common English usage to describe the local accent of Liverpool, and a resident of Liverpool (as "Scouser").

The traditional recipe for Liverpool Scouse consists of a cheap cut of lamb, or in earlier days, mutton (such as breast, forequarter or "scrag end of neck"), removed from the bone and browned in a large saucepan, to which are added chopped onions, carrots, and water or meat stock, to which are added as many potatoes as possible. The sauce is not thickened, and it is usual to serve with preserved beetroot or red cabbage and white bread with butter. In the nearby town of St. Helens the dish is often called "Lobbies" and uses corned beef as the meat. An even more impoverished variety of this dish is 'blind Scouse', which features no meat, although it would likely have used cheap "soup bones" for flavouring the broth (prior to WW2, such meat bones could be sold to bone dealers after being used and for the same price as originally purchased from the butcher). Either recipe should more rightly be considered a potato stew. The dish is also popular in Leigh with local residents sometimes being referred to as 'Lobbygobblers'.

A variant Lobscows or Lobsgows is a traditional dish in North Wales, normally made with beef in the form of braising or stewing steak, potatoes, and any other vegetable available. The food was traditionally regarded as food for farmers and the working class people of North Wales, but is now popular as a dish throughout Wales. The recipe was brought by the canal barges to Stoke-on-Trent where it is called "Lobby", the shortened version of "lobscouse".

In Norway, which had a long sea-trading association with the Northern English seaports, the dish (known locally as lapskaus) is virtually a national dish using the weekend's remaining food, usually carrots, potatoes, pork sausages in slices or beef cut small and served with flatbrød (unleavened bread dating back to prehistoric times).

The name of the North German hash Labskaus is derived from "Lapskaus" the Norwegian for stew,[4]. Labskaus is traditional in the Lower Elbe region, especially in the port city Hamburg."

Beef isn't strictly traditional, but as long as it's enjoyed, we need'nt be too picky about what goes in. I'm tempted to try a pork lobby next time. Yum!

 

[Ffin72]

Beef is surprisingly pricey over here, but that looks tasty so I may give it a go. Cheers.

It's traditionally a poor dish, so feel free to use any other meat. See my post above, and enjoy.

 

[Martyn]

Beef isn't strictly traditional, but as long as it's enjoyed, we need'nt be too picky about what goes in. I'm tempted to try a pork lobby next time. Yum!

I dunno about that mate. My grandad was a miner in Tunstall and my Grandma used to load bullets at Radway Green until she became a housewife. They were never rich, but they ate well. Traditional lobby for me, was how me grandma used to make it. I used to love going round to my nan's on lobby day. The meat was always whatever was leftover from a roast, so lobby day was usually Monday. I can only ever remember her making it with beef, though sometimes she put kidneys in it as well. I definitely never had it with white meat.

I doesn't surprise me that lobby has it's origins in Scandinavia and Germany though. Did you know the Old English word dug or dugan which means....

dugan [] irreg v/t 3rd pres déag pl dugon past dohte ptp gedugen (usu impersonal) to avail, be worth, be of use, be capable of, competent, or good for anything; thrive, be strong, able, fit, vigorous; be good, virtuous, kind, honest, bountiful, kind, liberal, (1) for a person (dat), (2)

Source

...and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon dugan; Old High German tugan, to be virtuous, good, honourable...

...is the origin of the Staffordshire term duck/duk/dug.