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Irish Stew

A stew of mutton, potatoes, onions, water, salt, and pepper, simmered until tender.

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. Cut the meat into neat pieces and trim off the fat.

  2. Slice the onions and cut the potatoes into thick slices.

Cook

  1. Put the meat in a saucepan and lay the vegetables on top.

  2. Sprinkle in the salt and pepper.

  3. Add the water, cover the saucepan, and bring to a boil.

  4. Simmer gently for about 1.5 hours.

  5. Optionally, bake in the oven in a pie dish or casserole.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and, as it simmers, rich body to the stew.
Potatoes
Thicken the stew as they break down and add starch and bulk.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 1.5 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and juicy. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can break up the potatoes and make the stew cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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