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A Dainty and Wholesome Little Meat Stew

A simple stew of tender beef, lamb, or mutton with potato, cooked in water and seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Dainty and Wholesome Little Meat Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, cover the meat with boiling water and simmer until very tender.

  2. Add the optional onion, parsley, celery, spinach, or cauliflower for flavoring at the beginning.

  3. Add the potato squares when the meat is nearly done.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt just before serving.

  5. If desired, press the vegetables through a puree sieve for younger children.

  6. Add broken Zwieback crumbs for extra texture if desired.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Spinach + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, lamb, or mutton
Provides the protein and savory meaty flavor that forms the base of the stew.
Potato
Adds starch and body, thickening the broth and giving the stew a soft, smooth texture.
Zwieback
Adds a dry, crumbly texture that softens in the liquid and gives extra body.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat until very tender. Slow, gentle simmering breaks down the connective tissue in tougher cuts, making the meat soft enough for babies to eat safely and comfortably.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, parsley, celery, spinach, cauliflower, potato):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, parsley, celery, spinach, cauliflower, potato. 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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