Skip to main content
Main

Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton chops, potatoes, onions, ham, and seasonings simmered in broth and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Peel, slice, and parboil the potatoes, then discard the cooking liquid.

  2. Trim the fat from the mutton chops, leaving 2 pounds of meat.

Layer and stew

  1. In a large pot, layer half the potatoes, followed by half the meat, onions, and seasoning.

  2. Repeat the layers with the remaining potatoes, meat, onions, and seasoning.

  3. Top with the last layer of potatoes.

  4. Pour in the broth and mushroom ketchup.

  5. Cover and stew slowly for 1.5 hours, ensuring it does not burn.

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. Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Potatoes
Starchy body that softens and thickens the stew as it cooks.
Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, whose connective tissue breaks down into tender bite-sized pieces during slow stewing.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the layers.
Broth or gravy
Supplies moisture so the layers steam and stew rather than dry out.

The step that matters

Cover and stew slowly. Gentle, covered heat lets the meat's connective tissue break down while the liquid stays in the pot. Too much heat or too little liquid can scorch the bottom before the meat becomes tender.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, ham, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes