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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of meat, turnips, onions, and optional vegetables simmered in broth with milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the meat in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Add the turnips, onions, carrots, and cabbage if desired.

  3. Boil for 3-4 hours.

  4. Add the desired number of potatoes.

  5. Cook until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the vegetables from the pot.

  2. Add the vegetables to the broth.

  3. Stir in milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Boil again.

  5. Pour over the vegetables.

  6. Garnish with parsley or thyme for added flavor.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Releases flavor and body into the broth during long simmering.
Turnips
Hold their shape during long boiling and add a mild, slightly sweet flavor.
Onions
Become sweet and mellow during long cooking, adding depth to the broth.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding starch that gives the stew body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil again. Once milk is added, boiling it hard can cause it to curdle or scorch on the bottom of the pot. Keep the heat controlled so the broth stays smooth.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, turnip, onion, cabbage, potato, milk, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, turnip, onion, cabbage, potato, milk, butter. 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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