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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of lamb or beef, potatoes, onions, and flour, simmered slowly with gravy or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 meat

  1. Flatten the meat cutlets with a rolling pin.

  2. Dip the flattened cutlets in a mixture of pepper, salt, and flour.

Layer and stew

  1. Layer half of the sliced potatoes in a pot and dust with pepper and salt.

  2. Add a layer of meat sprinkled with chopped onions.

  3. Repeat the layers until the pot is nearly full.

  4. Pour in the gravy or water.

  5. Finish with a final layer of potatoes on top.

  6. Cover the pot tightly.

  7. Let it stew slowly for about 3 hours, shaking occasionally to prevent burning.

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. 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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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

Potatoes
Bulk the stew and thicken the liquid as their starch softens during slow cooking.
Meat (back ribs or neck of mutton)
Supplies rich flavor, and collagen that softens into tender meat over long, slow cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook down into the broth.
Flour
Coats the meat and helps thicken the stew's liquid into a light gravy.

The step that matters

Shaking to prevent burning. The stew sits for hours with little liquid at the bottom of the pot, so it can scorch. Shaking the covered pot occasionally redistributes liquid and keeps the base from sticking and burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, mutton, flour, 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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