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Brunswick Stew

A stew of chicken, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, lima beans, onions, butter, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, salt, pepper, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the chickens until the meat is ready to fall off the bone.

  2. Remove the bones from the chickens.

  3. Chop the vegetables, except for the corn.

  4. Cut the corn very fine.

Make the stew

  1. Add the finely cut corn to the pot 20 minutes before the stew is done.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped chicken to the pot. Stir constantly.

  3. Boil the vegetables until they are perfectly cooked.

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. Corn + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that is cooked tender and returned to the stew.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and liquid that form the body of the stew.
Corn
Adds sweetness and texture when cut fine and added late.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that rounds out the flavor.
Lima beans
Add starchy body and a firm, creamy texture to the stew.
Potatoes
Thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases during cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the corn 20 minutes before the end. Corn cut fine and added late cooks quickly; adding it too early can overcook it and dull its sweetness and texture.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, corn, potato, butter, onion, sauce):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, corn, potato, butter, onion, sauce. 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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