Skip to main content
Main

Irish Stew

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 mutton into chops of moderate thickness.

  2. Pare and slice the potatoes, and cut the onions into rings.

Layer and stew

  1. Put a layer of potatoes at the bottom of a stewing pan.

  2. Add a layer of mutton and onions, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  3. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, ensuring plenty of vegetables are on top.

  4. Pour in the water and let it stew gently for 2.5 hours with the lid tightly closed.

  5. Occasionally shake the pot to prevent burning.

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. Onion + peppertop 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 meat and rich flavour that the stew is built around.
Potatoes
Form the base layers and thicken the stew as their starch softens during cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften slowly in the stewing liquid.
Water
Creates the stewing liquid that gently cooks the layers and turns them tender.

The step that matters

Pour in the water and let it stew gently for 2.5 hours with the lid tightly closed.. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the meat tender and the potatoes intact. Boiling hard or lifting the lid lets liquid escape and can toughen the meat and break up the potatoes.

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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes