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Genuine Irish Stew

A hearty stew made with pig feet, legs, potatoes, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Genuine Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean the pig feet and legs, removing hair and toes.

  2. Cut the legs into pieces suitable for stewing.

Make the stew

  1. Place the pieces in cold water and cook slowly for 3 hours.

  2. Pare and cut the potatoes.

  3. Add the potatoes to the stew with salt and pepper 30 minutes before serving.

  4. Stir frequently to prevent sticking and 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.

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 + peppertop 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

Pig feet and legs
Collagen in the connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the stew a rich body.
Potatoes
Their starch softens and thickens the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Stir frequently to prevent sticking and burning.. Starch and gelatin settle and concentrate on the base of a pot during long, slow cooking, so they can scorch. Regular stirring keeps the liquid moving and the bottom from burning.

“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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