Pair this hearty stew with soda bread or dinner rolls.
½ pound thick-cut bacon slices, diced
1 pound pork sausage
2 large onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup stout beer, optional
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 cups chicken broth
⅓ cup chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 300ºF. Using a large Dutch oven on the stove, add diced bacon and cook until golden brown. Remove bacon and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate. Add sausages and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Remove, cut into chunks and reserve. Discard most of the fat rendered in the pot, leaving two to three tablespoons. Add onions and sauté until beginning to brown, about three to four minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about one to two minutes. Add beer to deglaze the pot, cooking and scraping all the browned bits from the bottom, until almost all evaporated. Remove the onions and reserve.
Remove Dutch oven from the heat. Add half of the potatoes to the bottom of the pot. Season with black pepper and sprinkle with some chopped parsley. Then, add half onions and top with half the cooked bacon. Repeat with another potato layer seasoned with pepper and parsley, followed by onions and bacon. Finish by layering the sausages, cut into chunks. Add chicken broth. Bring the pot back to the stove and bring to a boil, over medium-high heat.
Cover and transfer the pot to the oven. Cook for at least two hours until potatoes are cooked (no more than four hours), checking occasionally and adding more liquid as needed. There should be at least oneinch of liquid at the bottom of the pot at all times to prevent burning.
Remove from oven, season with salt and pepper and garnish with parsley to serve.