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China Stew

A veal or mutton stew flavored with curry powder, thick white sauce, peas, mint, and lettuce, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

China Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, fry the minced onion in melted butter until soft but not browned.

  2. Add the diced meat and sprinkle with curry powder, stirring gently for 6 minutes.

  3. Pour in the thick white sauce, cover the pan, and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

Add vegetables and serve

  1. Boil the peas with mint leaves until tender, then drain.

  2. Add the peas and shredded lettuce to the meat and cook for another 30 minutes.

  3. Serve the stew over a bed of boiled rice and garnish with chopped parsley.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Mint + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked veal or mutton
Provides the main body of the stew, and simmering in sauce keeps it tender and moist.
Thick white sauce
Supplies moisture and a creamy body that thickens the stew as it cooks.
Butter or clarified dripping
Carries the curry powder and adds richness to the onion and meat.
Peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Covered oven cooking of the meat in sauce. Covering the pan and cooking slowly at a moderate heat keeps the sauce from evaporating and reduces the meat's tendency to toughen, so it stays tender and moist.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, butter, sauce, peas, lettuce, rice):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, butter, sauce, peas, lettuce, rice. 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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