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Stew, Irish

A hearty stew of chops, potatoes, turnips, and onion simmered in water.

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

Stew, Irish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer the chops, sliced potatoes, turnips, and chopped onion in a stewpan.

  2. Pour in nearly 1 quart of water.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the stewpan closely and let it simmer gently for about 2 hours until the vegetables are soft and most of the gravy is absorbed.

  2. 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.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Chops
Provide the main meat and rich flavor that enriches the gravy as it cooks.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering to thicken the stew and give it body.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mildly sweet, earthy flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the gravy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmering gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and lets the vegetables soften without breaking apart. Boiling hard toughens meat proteins and can break up the potatoes, leaving a cloudy, uneven gravy.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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