Name: Apache Stew
Ingredients: 2 x Red bell peppers; 5 x Green anaheim chiles; 1/4 cup Sunflower oil; 1 lb Venison, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes; 1 x Onion, diced; 3 x Garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 x Carrots, sliced; 3 cup Cooked Indian hominy; 8 cup Water; 1 1/2 tsp Salt; 1 tsp White pepper; 1 cup Tumbleweed greens, thoroughly cleaned, or curly endive

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sunflower + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 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

Venison: Provides the main meat and savory body as it browns and tenderises during the long simmer.
Red bell peppers: Add sweetness and vegetable body that softens into the stew after roasting.
Green anaheim chiles: Add mild heat and a roasted, fresh pepper aroma to the broth.
Cooked indian hominy: Adds starchy body and a chewy, corn-like texture that thickens the stew.
Onion: Builds the aromatic base, adding sweetness and depth as it softens in the oil.
Carrots: Add sweetness and firm texture that holds up through the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering the stew for 1 1/2 hours on low heat. A gentle, low simmer lets the venison become tender and the flavours blend without toughening the meat or scorching the bottom of the pot. Boiling hard would make the meat firm and tight.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sunflower, venison, onion, garlic, clove, carrot):

Cuminfits better
Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sunflower, venison, onion, garlic, clove, carrot. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Venison	100g cooked	158
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Red Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Sunflower Oil	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0
Endive	not in our table	0

Apache Stew

Apache Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

Make the stew

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)