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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, potatoes, turnips, and onions simmered in water with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Place the mutton pieces in a stew pan and cover with warm water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

Make the stew

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the whole small potatoes, quartered turnips, and quartered onions.

  3. Simmer for one hour without thickening.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat, whose connective tissue softens into tender bites during long simmering.
Small potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding body and starch that lightly thickens the broth.
Turnips
Hold their shape while adding a mildly sweet, earthy flavour to the broth.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they simmer, adding depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam carries impurities from the meat that cloud the broth and taste bitter. Removing it early keeps the stew clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, pepper, 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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