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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton chops, potatoes, turnips, onions, and water simmered until vegetables soften.

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 sliced potatoes and mutton chops in a stewpan.

  2. Add chopped turnips and onions.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of cold water.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the stewpan and simmer gently until the vegetables are soft and most of the gravy is absorbed.

  2. Transfer to a dish 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 rich fat that flavour the stew and its gravy.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the gravy as their starch releases.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up to long simmering.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the water as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until most of the gravy is absorbed. A gentle simmer lets the meat and vegetables become tender without breaking apart. Boiling hard toughens meat proteins and can scatter the potatoes, so keep the pot covered and at a low heat.

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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