Name: Irish Stew
Ingredients: 2 pounds breast of mutton; 1½ pints water; ¼ teaspoon salt; 4 pounds potatoes, peeled and halved; 3-4 onions, peeled and sliced; pepper to taste

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 broth

Place the mutton in a pot with water and salt.
Stew gently for 1 hour.
Remove the fat from the broth and take out the meat.
Cut the meat into small pieces.

Layer and stew

Layer half of the potatoes in the pot, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Add a layer of meat, followed by a layer of onions, then repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.
Cover the pot and stew gently for another hour.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of mutton: Provides the rich meat and fat that flavour the broth and the stew.
Potatoes: Absorb the broth as they cook, becoming tender and thickening the stew.
Onions: Soften during the long stew and add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.