Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Stew

A stew of meat, onions, tomatoes, carrots, and peppers, simmered with Worcestershire and chili sauce, served with stuffed red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the sliced onions and meat, and brown them together.

  3. Stir in the flour, tomatoes, carrots, Worcestershire sauce, chili sauce, chopped red pepper, salt, and stock.

  4. Let the mixture simmer slowly until thick and cooked through.

Stuff and bake the peppers

  1. Mix the tomatoes, crumbled crackers, sugar, and butter.

  2. Fill the peppers with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter.

  2. Garnish with stuffed red peppers.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Meat
Browning gives the stew savoury depth, and its protein sets texture as it cooks slowly.
Flour
Thickens the stew as it simmers, giving it body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, and break down into the sauce as it simmers.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and bind the stuffing so it holds its shape in the peppers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the browning base and the stuffing.
Red peppers
Provide sweetness and a tender vessel that holds the stuffing while it bakes.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until thick. Low, slow simmering lets the flour thicken the liquid evenly and the meat become tender. Rushing with high heat can scorch the bottom or leave the flour raw-tasting and the stew thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, flour, tomato, carrot, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, flour, tomato, carrot, sauce, 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.

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes