Skip to main content
Main

Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, onions, potatoes, thickened with flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Irish Stew

Why it works: Onion and potato 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. In a large pot, add 2 pounds of mutton and 3 quarts of water.

  2. Slice 4 onions and add them to the pot.

  3. Boil for about 30 minutes.

  4. Peel and chop 12 medium-sized potatoes, then add them to the pot.

Thicken and finish

  1. When the meat and potatoes are nearly done, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with water to create a thickening.

  2. Stir the thickening into the stew and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Optional: Add dumplings if desired.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the rich meat flavour and tender texture as it simmers in the broth.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering, adding body and starch that helps thicken the stew.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth as they cook.
Flour
Mixed with water and stirred in, it thickens the broth into a heavier stew.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour thickening. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid clumps. Blending it with water first into a smooth slurry, then stirring it in, lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken the stew smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, flour, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes