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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, potatoes, onions, turnips, and optional cabbage, simmered in water or stock.

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

Why it works: Turnip and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut mutton into strips and place in a pot with 1 quart of water.

Stew

  1. Stew until nearly tender.

  2. Add potatoes, onions, turnips, and cabbage if desired.

  3. Season to taste and cook until vegetables are tender.

  4. If liquid boils away, add good stock, preferably mutton stock.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with meat and vegetables together.

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. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it stews slowly in liquid.
Potatoes
Thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases during cooking and absorbs flavour.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they soften during the long, slow cooking.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften and release their sugars into the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stew until nearly tender before adding vegetables. Mutton needs a long, gentle simmer to break down its connective tissue. Adding vegetables too early can leave them overcooked and mushy before the meat is done.

Swap the cabbage

The recipe marks cabbage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, onion, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, onion, turnip. 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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