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To Make Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, potatoes, onions, pepper, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Make 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 ↓

To Make Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into chops.

Stew

  1. In a stew pan, layer the mutton chops with parboiled potatoes, sliced onions, pepper, salt, and hot water.

  2. Cover the pan tightly and let it stew slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent sticking.

Serve

  1. Serve very 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.

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. Pepper + potatotop 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

Mutton
Provides the rich meat flavor and becomes tender as it slowly stews.
Potatoes
Their starch softens and thickens the broth, adding body to the stew.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that deepen as they cook slowly in the liquid.
Hot water
Acts as the cooking liquid, carrying heat gently around the meat and vegetables.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and stew slowly. A tightly covered pan at a gentle simmer keeps moisture in and heat even, so the tough mutton breaks down into tenderness without drying out or toughening.

Swap the onion

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

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

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