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Irish Stew

A stew of meat, potatoes, vegetables, dumplings, bread, and beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Meat and potato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 786 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine 3 oz. of meat with the liquor from the previous day's meat.

  2. Add 12 oz. of diced potatoes and other vegetables.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender and the vegetables are cooked through.

  4. Prepare a dumpling and add it to the stew during the last few minutes of cooking.

  5. Serve with 6 oz. of bread and ½ pint of beer.

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

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

  2. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Potato + beertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Bread + beertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main savory flavor and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Potatoes
Break down partly as they cook, thickening the stew and adding body.
Dumpling
Cooks in the simmering liquid, puffing up into a soft, starchy mass.
Liquor from meat of previous day
Serves as the cooking liquid, carrying flavor from the meat into the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the dumpling late. Dumplings need the last few minutes of cooking to set through. Adding them too early lets them overcook and turn gummy, while adding them too late leaves them raw in the centre.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, beer):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, beer. 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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