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Proper Irish Stew

A stew of mutton chops, potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and water simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Proper Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the pot

  1. In an enamel saucepan, layer peeled potatoes and sliced onions.

  2. Add a layer of mutton chops, then repeat layers until the pot is full, finishing with vegetables.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook

  1. Just cover the ingredients with cold water.

  2. Simmer gently for 1.5 to 2 hours, removing the lid as seldom as possible.

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. 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. 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 neck chops
Provides the rich meat flavour and fat that season the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the broth with their starch.
Onions
Turn sweet and mellow as they cook, adding depth to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and keep the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear, while a vigorous boil toughens the meat and breaks up the potatoes. Removing the lid often lets heat and moisture escape, so the cooking slows and the flavours thin out.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, 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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