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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, onions, potatoes simmered in water with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Cut and trim the mutton into cutlets.

  2. Place the cutlets in a stewpan.

  3. Sprinkle the cutlets with salt and pepper, then pour in cold water.

  4. Wash, scrub, and peel the potatoes, then cut the potatoes in halves.

  5. Peel the onions carefully.

Simmer

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil, then skim the surface.

  2. Reduce heat and let the stew simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Stir occasionally and remove any fat that rises to the top.

  4. Add the onions and potatoes to the stew and simmer for another hour.

  5. Check if the vegetables are tender with a fork.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a hot dish and pour the sauce around them.

  2. Place the vegetables in the center of the dish.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 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

Mutton
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful during long gentle simmering.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases into the liquid.
Onions
Turn sweet and soft as they cook, adding savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming and gentle simmering. Bringing the stew to a hard boil makes fat and scum emulsify into the liquid and toughens the meat. Skimming the surface and keeping the heat low produces a clearer sauce and more tender mutton.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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