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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of lamb or beef with onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and green pepper, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Prepare

  1. Wipe the meat and cut it into pieces.

  2. Season the meat with salt, pepper, and ginger.

  3. Place the meat in a kettle and cover it with boiling water.

  4. Add the sliced onion and carrots.

Simmer

  1. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  2. Add the peeled potatoes, tomatoes, and green pepper.

  3. Cook slowly for another 24 hours.

Finish

  1. Thicken the stew with a little flour and stir in the chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,377 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or beef shoulder
Connective tissue breaks down slowly into gelatin, making the meat tender and the broth rich.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stew.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, adding body to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and flavour that balances the rich meat.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid into a smoother, heavier stew.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue in the shoulder break down into gelatin, which keeps the meat tender. Boiling hard tightens the muscle fibres and leaves the meat tough and stringy.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, onion, carrot, potato, tomato, parsley):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, onion, carrot, potato, tomato, 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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