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A Vekt Economical Dinner

A simple stew of sausages, potatoes, and optional onion thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Vekt Economical Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a large pot, combine the sausages, sliced potatoes, and onion if using.

  2. Mix the flour with the water and add to the pot.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the potatoes are tender.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper, salt, and sage or thyme before serving.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Potato + sagetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sausages
Provide meaty flavour and fat that enriches the broth as it cooks.
Potatoes
Bulk up the stew and turn soft and starchy, thickening the liquid slightly as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the water into a lightly body-rich broth as it heats.

The step that matters

Cook until the potatoes are tender. Potatoes need steady medium heat long enough for their starch to soften fully. Stopping early leaves firm, raw-tasting centres, while overly vigorous boiling can break the slices apart and cloud the broth.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, pepper, sage):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, pepper, sage. 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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