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Irish Stew

A simple stew of pearl onions, potatoes, and eggs simmered in water with herbs and optional dairy.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add pearl onions, bay leaves, coarse sea salt, and black peppercorns or green pepper skin.

  3. When the onions are nearly done, add small potatoes and simmer until tender.

  4. Blend flour with butter or oil, then gradually add the broth to thicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix halved hard-boiled eggs with the butter sauce and let stand in a warm place for 10 minutes.

  2. Add cooked vegetables and plenty of chopped parsley to the mixture.

  3. Serve on a large platter, optionally adding horseradish or mustard for flavor.

  4. For a richer sauce, add hot milk to the broth and use cream instead of butter.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 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

Potatoes
Become tender and starchy, adding body and bulk to the stew.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce when cooked with fat and liquid.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add soft, mild richness that blends into the buttery sauce.
Butter or oil
Carries flavor and adds richness to the thickened sauce.
Pearl onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, flavoring the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening the broth with flour and fat. If flour is added without first being blended with the fat, or the liquid is added too quickly, lumps form. Blending flour with butter and adding broth gradually keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the horseradish

The recipe marks horseradish as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, potato, flour, butter, egg, parsley):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, potato, flour, butter, egg, parsley. 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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