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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton or lamb with onions, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, celery, parsley, peas, and a milk‑cornstarch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Brown the meat

  1. Heat the butter or beef dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Brown the sliced onion in the fat.

  3. Add the mutton or lamb pieces.

  4. Turn the meat until coated and slightly browned.

  5. Add enough cold water to cover the meat by 1 inch.

  6. Cover tightly.

  7. Stew for 2 hours or until very tender.

Add the vegetables

  1. In another pot, cook the sliced potatoes, diced carrot, chopped tomato, minced celery, and chopped parsley for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the vegetables.

  3. Add the parboiled vegetables to the stew.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Cook gently for another 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Using a perforated spoon, transfer the meat and vegetables to a flat dish, placing the meat in the center and the vegetables around it.

  2. In the saucepan, add the peas and hot milk mixed with cornstarch.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Pour over the meat and vegetables.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the stew as they soften.
Onion
Browned in the fat, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the stew.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk, giving the finishing sauce a smooth, light body.
Tomato
Adds acidity and moisture, balancing the richness of the meat and fat.

The step that matters

Stew for 2 hours or until very tender. Lean mutton or lamb is tough until its connective tissue breaks down slowly in gentle, moist heat. Stopping early leaves the meat chewy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, onion, potato, carrot, celery, parsley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, onion, potato, carrot, celery, 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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