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Irish Stew

A stew of meat, bread, butter, tea, and water simmered until tender.

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

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the meat into pieces.

  2. In a pot, layer the meat and bread.

  3. Add butter and tea.

  4. Pour in water and bring to a boil.

  5. Simmer until the meat is tender.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Bread + teatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + teatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together207 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

Meat
Provides the main protein; slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue so it becomes tender.
Bread
Layered with the meat, it soaks up cooking liquid and helps thicken the stew.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Keep the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling tightens meat fibres and toughens them, while slow, gentle heat gradually softens the connective tissue that makes meat tender.

“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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