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Irish Stew of Beef

A hearty stew of beef, onions, carrot, potatoes simmered in water with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the beef, onions, carrot, salt, and pepper in an earthenware baking pan.

Stew and finish

  1. Pour in the water and stew in the oven for 1 hour.

  2. Cover the stew with pared potatoes and return to the oven.

  3. Cook for another 1½ hours until the potatoes are soft.

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

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow stewing.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stewing in the oven. Cooking at a low, steady heat for a long time lets the tough connective tissue in coarse beef break down, making it tender. Rushing with high heat or too short a time leaves the meat chewy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, 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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