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Irish Stew

A hearty stew of mutton cutlets, potatoes, onion, pepper, salt, and water simmered for two hours.

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

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 Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the potatoes by peeling and cutting them in halves.

  2. Slice the onion very thinly.

Layer and cook

  1. In a stew pan, place a layer of potatoes at the bottom.

  2. Add a layer of mutton cutlets and a sprinkling of onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  4. Pour in the water, cover the pan, and simmer gently for 2 hours.

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. 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 cutlets
Provide the main meat, whose fat and juices flavour the stew as it simmers.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the stew and thicken the liquid as their starch softens during simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma that deepens as it cooks slowly in the stew.
Water
Creates the cooking liquid that gently braises the layers and carries flavour between them.

The step that matters

Pour in the water, cover the pan, and simmer gently for 2 hours.. Gentle heat over a long time lets the tough meat become tender without toughening its proteins. A rolling boil would toughen the meat and break up the potatoes.

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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