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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, carrots, turnips, onions, and a buttered crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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

Brown the mutton

  1. Brown the mutton in its own fat or in a little butter.

  2. Add hot water, pepper, and salt.

Stew

  1. Stir in chopped carrot and turnip, cover, and stew for 1 hour.

  2. Add sliced onions and cook for another hour.

Make and add the crust

  1. In the last 15 minutes, mix flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Rub in butter and add enough water to moisten the mixture.

  3. Roll out the dough thinly to fit the top of the stewpan.

  4. Place the crust over the stew and cook for 15 minutes.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fore-quarter mutton
Provides the meat and fat that flavour the stew and become tender during long simmering.
Carrot and turnip
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during cooking.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and depth to the broth.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough crust that cooks on top of the stew.
Baking soda and cream of tartar
React together to leaven the dough so the crust rises and becomes lighter.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and tenderness to the crust.

The step that matters

Adding the crust and cooking it on top. The dough must be rolled thin and moistened just enough, since too much water makes it heavy. Cooking it covered on the stew lets the steam set and lighten the crust while it cooks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, pepper, carrot, turnip, flour, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, carrot, turnip, flour, cream. 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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