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Irish Stew

A slow‑cooked mutton stew with onions, potatoes, and optional bacon or ham, seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from the neck of mutton and cut into cutlets according to the number of bones.

  2. Sprinkle the cutlets with pepper.

  3. Peel the onions and blanch them separately.

  4. Blanch the potatoes separately as well.

Stew

  1. In a clean 3-quart stewpan, add ½ pint of water or stock.

  2. Layer the bottom with potatoes, then add cutlets, followed by onions, and repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of potatoes on top.

  3. Add bacon or ham if desired.

  4. Stew very slowly until the cutlets are cooked through, ensuring there is enough liquid to prevent burning.

  5. If the mutton is lean, add a little butter to the stew.

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

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

  5. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat and fat that flavour the stew as it cooks slowly.
Potatoes
Layered at the base and top, they thicken the stew as their starch breaks down.
Onions
Add sweetness and body as they soften during the slow stew.
Water or stock
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the stew moist and prevents burning.

The step that matters

Stew very slowly with enough liquid. Gentle heat lets the tough cutlets become tender without toughening, while enough liquid keeps the stew from scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, ham, butter, 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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