Name: Irish Stew, Dublin Style
Ingredients: 2 carrots, chopped; 1 small turnip, chopped; 3 onions, chopped; 6 potatoes, sliced; 3-4 tablespoons mashed potato; Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Irish Stew, Dublin Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

In a pot, combine stewed mutton with carrots, turnip, onions, and sliced potatoes.
Cook until all vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

Thicken the stew and stir in the mashed potato.
Season with salt and pepper, then serve.

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.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Break down during cooking to give the stew body and a hearty texture.
Mashed potato: Its starch thickens the cooking liquid, giving the stew a richer consistency.
Onions: Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the stew's flavor.
Carrots: Release natural sweetness as they cook until tender.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with mashed potato. Mashed potato thickens the liquid through its starch, which is released as it warms. Stir it into the hot stew and let it heat through so it blends evenly rather than sitting in clumps or leaving the stew thin.

Swap the onion

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

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, potato, 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.

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Irish Stew, Dublin Style