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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of lamb or beef with potatoes, carrots, onion, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Brown the meat

  1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the meat and brown on all sides.

  3. Stir in the onion and cook until softened.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the potatoes, carrots, and beef broth.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until meat is tender.

  4. Garnish with fresh parsley before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Potatoes
Thicken the stew slightly as they break down and add starchy body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and firm texture that holds up to long cooking.
Onion
Softens and adds savory depth to the broth as it cooks.
Beef broth
Forms the cooking liquid and carries flavor through the whole stew.

The step that matters

Browning the meat. Searing meat over medium heat before adding liquid creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Meat that is crowded or steamed instead of browned stays pale and tastes flatter in the finished stew.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, potato, carrot, beef, pepper, parsley. 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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