Skip to main content
Main

Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton or beef with potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into pieces of ¼ pound each.

  2. If using a loin or neck of mutton, cut it into chops.

  3. For a shoulder, disjoint it and cut the blade bone into four pieces.

  4. For a leg, slice the meat into ½ inch thick slices.

  5. Rub the meat with salt, pepper, and flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. In a large pot, heat some fat and brown the meat on both sides.

  2. Add the whole onions and chopped potatoes to the pot.

  3. Pour in enough water to cover the potatoes.

  4. Cover the pot and simmer gently for two hours, keeping the heat low.

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the stew as it simmers slowly.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook, thickening the stew and adding starchy body.
Flour
Dusted on the meat to help build a thicker, more cohesive stew base.
Onions
Soften and release sweetness into the broth during the long, gentle simmer.

The step that matters

Brown the meat on both sides. Browning creates Maillard reactions that add deep, savory flavor to the meat and fat. Skipping or rushing it leaves the stew tasting flat and grey.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes