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To Make an Irish Stew, or Hunter’s Pie

A pot pie of mutton chops, mashed potatoes, and gravy baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make an Irish Stew, or Hunter’s Pie

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 the mutton

  1. Season the mutton chops with salt and pepper.

  2. In a stew-pan, braise the seasoned mutton for 30 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash and season them.

  2. Butter a mold and line it with the mashed potatoes.

  3. Place the braised mutton in the center of the potato-lined mold.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  5. Cut a hole in the top and add good gravy 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.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow braising.
Potatoes
Form the starchy mashed shell that holds the meat and sets as it bakes.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the finished stew at serving.

The step that matters

Braising the mutton. Mutton from a tough neck cut needs gentle, moist heat over time to break down connective tissue. Rushing it leaves the meat chewy, and the bake later cannot fix that.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter. 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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