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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, onions, potatoes, and seasonings simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Prepare and braise

  1. Cut the mutton into small cutlets.

  2. Place the cutlets in a stewpan with some of the mutton fat.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, sugar, and add the onions.

  4. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  5. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Add potatoes and finish

  1. Add the potatoes, cut in halves or quarters.

  2. Stir and let it stew gently for 1 hour longer.

  3. If cooking too fast, remove from heat; the potatoes should absorb the liquid.

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. Pepper + potatotop 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

Neck of mutton
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue enrich the broth as it stews.
Onions
Release sweetness and body into the broth as they cook slowly.
Potatoes
Soften and thicken the stew as they absorb the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the stew at a gentle simmer. Boiling hard toughens the meat fibres and can break up the potatoes, while slow, gentle heat lets collagen in the mutton break down into tender meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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