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Genuine Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton chops, potatoes, onions, pepper, salt, and water, simmered until tender.

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

Genuine Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the mutton chops, leaving a small rim of fat.

  2. Place 2 chops in a clean stewpan.

Layer and cook

  1. Cover with a layer of whole potatoes and add 2 small onions.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

  3. Add 2 more chops, cover with potatoes, and season again.

  4. Repeat until all chops are packed, using 3/4 pound of potatoes for every 1/2 pound of mutton.

  5. Add enough water to just cover the stew.

  6. Cover tightly and bring to a boil over high heat.

  7. Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy in a tureen.

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. 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 chops
Provide the main meat, whose fat rim adds richness to the broth as it cooks.
Potatoes
Soften during the long simmer, thickening the stew and absorbing its savoury juices.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the liquid during the slow simmer.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling. Once the stew reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the mutton tender. A hard boil toughens meat proteins and can 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.

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