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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, beef gravy, herbs, carrot, turnip, and onions.

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

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Partly roast the mutton.

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the mutton and enough beef gravy to cover it.

  2. Season the gravy with herbs, then add the carrot and turnip.

  3. Cut the onions into quarters and place them around the meat in the stewpan.

  4. Cook until the meat is tender, ensuring the gravy is free from fat.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

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 simmering in the gravy.
Beef gravy
Forms the cooking liquid, carrying flavour and moisture into the meat and vegetables.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew as it softens.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during long cooking.
Spanish onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook until the meat is tender, ensuring the gravy is free from fat.. Slow simmering breaks down the connective tissue in mutton, making it tender. Skimming fat keeps the gravy clean-tasting and prevents a greasy finish.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, beef, carrot, onion):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, carrot, onion. 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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