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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of lamb or mutton with onions, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, celery, parsley, peas, and a milk‑corn starch gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Heat butter or beef dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Brown the sliced onion in the fat.

  3. Add the meat.

  4. Turn the meat until coated and slightly browned.

  5. Add enough cold water to cover the meat by 1 inch.

  6. Cover tightly.

  7. Stew for 2 hours or until very tender.

Add the vegetables

  1. In another pot, cook the sliced potatoes, diced carrot, chopped tomato, minced celery, and chopped parsley for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the vegetables and discard the water.

  3. Add the parboiled vegetables to the stew.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Cook gently for another 30 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Remove the meat and vegetables with a perforated spoon and arrange on a flat dish.

  2. Add the peas and hot milk mixed with corn starch to the saucepan.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Pour the gravy over the meat and vegetables.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender and flavorful through long, slow stewing.
Potatoes
Starch that softens into the stew and adds body to the dish.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the gravy.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Onion
Browning in the fat builds savory flavor at the start of the stew.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and stew slowly for 2 hours. Tough lean meat needs long, gentle simmering so collagen breaks down and the meat becomes tender. Boiling hard or rushing this stage leaves the meat tough and dry.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, onion, potato, carrot, celery, parsley. 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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