Name: Irish Stew
Ingredients: 1½ pounds Australian meat; ½ pound potatoes; ½ pound onions; Coarse sea salt

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

1½ pounds Australian meat
½ pound potatoes
½ pound onions
Coarse sea salt

Directions

Wash the potatoes well in cold water and scrub them clean.
Fill a saucepan with hot water and bring it to a boil.
Peel the onions.
Place the potatoes in a steamer and sprinkle with salt. Boil the onions in a separate saucepan.
Set the steamer over the boiling water and cover tightly.
Steam the potatoes and boil the onions for 30 minutes.
Open the tin of Australian meat and carefully remove the fat from the top.
Slice the meat into pieces.
Check the potatoes and onions for tenderness with a fork.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together786 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

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