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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton chops, potatoes, onion, and a butter‑flour‑milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Irish Stew

Why it works: Potato and onion 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 the mutton

  1. Cover mutton chops with water and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour off the water and add more water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and stir in flour.

  2. Add milk, salt, and pepper to the butter-flour mixture.

Cook the stew

  1. Add potatoes and onion to the pot with mutton chops.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the ingredients.

  3. Boil until the potatoes are done.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the meat and rich savoury flavour of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce with the flour and butter.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, becoming tender as the stew cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour cook into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the butter-flour mixture. Flour clumps if it is not cooked smoothly in fat before liquid is added. Adding milk gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth and lets the starch thicken evenly as it heats.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, egg, flour, milk, pepper, potato. 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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