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Irish Stew

A stew of mutton chops, potatoes, turnips, onions, and water, simmered until vegetables are soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer the mutton chops and sliced potatoes in a stewpan.

  2. Add the turnips and onions on top.

Stew

  1. Pour in 1 quart of cold water and cover the stewpan tightly.

  2. Let it stew gently until the vegetables are soft and most of the gravy is absorbed.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a dish, season to taste, 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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the meat and fat that flavour the stew and enrich its gravy.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, thickening the gravy and giving the stew body.
Turnips
Soften during stewing and add a slightly sweet, earthy flavour to the gravy.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they stew, adding depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cover the stewpan tightly and stew gently. A tight lid keeps steam in so the vegetables cook through in their own moisture. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender rather than tough and stops the potatoes from breaking apart before the gravy thickens.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, onion. 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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