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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton chops, potatoes, turnips, and onions simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Potato and onion 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

Make the stew

  1. Layer the mutton chops, sliced potatoes, chopped turnips, and onions in a pot.

  2. Pour 1 quart of water over the layers.

  3. Cover the pot tightly and let it stew gently for about 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish and serve.

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

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

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the meat that releases flavor and richness into the stew as it simmers.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during stewing, thickening the broth and adding body.
Turnips
Soften during stewing and add a mildly sweet, earthy flavor to the broth.
Onions
Melt into the broth during slow stewing, adding sweetness and savory depth.

The step that matters

Cover the pot tightly and stew gently. A tight lid keeps steam in so the stew cooks in its own moisture. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender rather than tough and stringy.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, onion):

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

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