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Irish Stew and Dumplings

A hearty stew of lamb or beef with potatoes, carrots, onions, and dumplings made from flour, baking powder, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 and Dumplings

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.

Make the stew

  1. In a large pot, combine meat, water, potatoes, carrots, onion, salt, and pepper.

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

Make and add the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add ½ cup water to form a dough.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of dough into the stew during the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle with 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.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or beef
Becomes tender and flavourful as its connective tissue breaks down during slow simmering.
Potatoes
Thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases into the broth while cooking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the dumplings together when cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the dumplings rise and turn light and fluffy.

The step that matters

Drop the dough into the stew at a gentle simmer. Dumplings cook by steaming in the liquid. If the stew is at a hard boil, they can break apart, and if they are added too early they can turn dense and waterlogged. Keeping the timing and a gentle simmer helps them hold their shape and stay light.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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