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An Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton cutlets and potatoes simmered in water with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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An 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 ↓

An Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the stew

  1. In a large saucepan, layer a portion of the sliced potatoes.

  2. Season the mutton cutlets with pepper and place some on the potatoes.

  3. Add another layer of potatoes and repeat until all ingredients are used, reserving some potatoes for the top.

  4. If desired, add minced onions with the potatoes.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour in the cold water and add the salt when the stew begins to boil.

  2. Let it simmer gently for 2 hours and serve hot.

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

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

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat and rich flavour that the stew is built around.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the stew and thicken the liquid as their starch softens.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Add the salt when the stew begins to boil. Salt added at the start of cooking is evenly distributed through the liquid as it heats. Adding it only once boiling begins, as the record directs, gives a more even result than salting a cold liquid in a single dose. Keep the simmer gentle so the meat stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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