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Spanish Stew

A stew of rice, butter, onion, potatoes, tomatoes, red peppers, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the rice until golden brown, stirring constantly.

  2. Add the chopped onion, potatoes, and tomatoes to the pan.

  3. Boil the red peppers until soft, scrape out the pulp, and add to the pan.

  4. Cover and cook everything slowly for 1 hour.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Rice
Fried in butter until golden, it adds a toasted flavour and body to the stew.
Potatoes
Starchy pieces that soften during slow cooking and thicken the stew.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and moisture that form the base of the stew's sauce.
Red peppers
Softened by boiling, their pulp adds sweetness and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Frying the rice until golden brown. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the rice from scorching while its starches toast, which builds a nutty flavour. Burnt rice turns bitter and spoils the whole pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, potato, tomato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, potato, tomato, 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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