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Irish Stew

A stew of cold cooked meat, potatoes, butter, onion, and optional gravy simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a kettle, melt the butter and sauté the minced onion until slightly browned.

Assemble and cook

  1. Layer the cold cooked meat and raw potato slices alternately in the kettle, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. If available, add left-over gravy and pour in the boiling water.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

  4. If needed, add thickening at the end, stirring gently.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that softens during simmering and thickens the stew broth as it breaks down.
Cooked meat
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour in the stew.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the onion brown lightly before liquid is added.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth once browned.

The step that matters

Simmer until the potatoes are tender. Potatoes need steady, gentle simmering to cook through evenly. Boiling hard can break the slices apart and cloud the broth, while stopping early leaves them firm in the centre.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, potato, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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