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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken or squirrels, bacon, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, butter beans, and lemon, seasoned with butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Combine the chicken or squirrels and bacon with 6 quarts of water in a large pot.

  2. Cook until tender.

  3. Remove the meat from the bones and return it to the pot. Add more water if necessary.

  4. Stir in the potatoes, tomatoes, corn, butter beans, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  5. Stew until everything is cooked through.

Season and serve

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or squirrels
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long simmering and flavors the broth.
Bacon
Adds smoky fat to the broth, enriching its flavor as it cooks.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the stew and adding body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that brighten the broth.
Butter beans
Hold their shape during simmering and add creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stew until everything is cooked through. Vegetables and beans added at different times need enough simmering to become tender without falling apart. Undercooked beans stay firm and starchy, while overcooking breaks down the potatoes and corn. Checking texture before seasoning helps the stew reach a balanced, cohesive consistency.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, potato, tomato, corn, butter, beans, 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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