Skip to main content
Main

Irish Mutton Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, potatoes, carrots, onions, and herbs simmered in salted water and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Wash the mutton pieces.

  2. Place the mutton in a kettle with enough water to cover. Replenish the water if it boils out too much.

  3. Add salt and pepper.

  4. Let the mutton simmer until nearly done.

Add vegetables and thicken

  1. Add the potatoes, carrots, onions, and herbs (if using). Boil until the vegetables are tender.

  2. Mix flour with water to form a smooth paste. Stir the paste into the stew until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve in a hot deep dish or on a hot platter.

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 + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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
Provides the main meat, whose slow simmering turns tough connective tissue tender and flavourful.
Potatoes
Break down partly during boiling, adding body and starch that helps thicken the stew.
Flour
Starch that swells in the hot liquid, thickening the stew into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Carrots
Hold their shape during boiling and add natural sweetness to the savoury broth.
Onions
Soften as they cook, releasing sweetness and aroma into the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the stew. Flour clumps if added dry or without being smoothed into water first. Mixing it into a smooth paste and stirring it in while the stew is hot lets the starch disperse and swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened result rather than lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, pepper, potato, carrot, flour. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes