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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton neck, onions, potatoes, and optional bacon or ham, simmered slowly in water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Onion and potato 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. Trim excess fat from the neck of mutton and cut it into cutlets according to the number of bones.

  2. Sprinkle the cutlets with pepper.

  3. Peel the onions and blanch them separately with the potatoes.

Assemble and stew

  1. In a clean 3‑quart stewpan, add ½ pint of water or stock.

  2. Layer the bottom with potatoes, then add cutlets, onions, and repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of potatoes on top.

  3. Add bacon or ham if desired.

  4. Stew slowly until the cutlets are cooked, ensuring there is enough liquid to prevent burning.

  5. If the mutton is lean, add a little butter to the stew.

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. Onion + potatotop 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 and rich flavour that the stew is built around.
Potatoes
Absorb the cooking liquid and thicken the stew as they soften, adding body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly in the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to lean mutton, improving mouthfeel and flavour.

The step that matters

Keeping enough liquid during the slow stew. Without enough water or stock, the bottom of the stewpan can scorch and burn before the cutlets are cooked through. Slow simmering over gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the stew from catching.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, ham, butter, 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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