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Irish Stew

A stew of roast meat, potatoes, and optional oysters or ham, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

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

Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut leftover roast meat into pieces.

  2. If using, add oysters, ham, or ham shank.

  3. Peel and chop potatoes.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine meat, potatoes, and enough water to cover.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until meat and potatoes are tender.

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. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Oyster + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover roast meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the stew.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the broth as their starch releases.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Bringing to a boil and then reducing to a gentle simmer cooks the meat and potatoes evenly. A hard boil can toughen meat and break up potatoes, so keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer matters.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, oyster, ham):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, oyster, ham. 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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