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Vegetable Stew

A simple stew of water, salt, bay leaves, onion, carrots, lettuce, apples, and vermicelli or alternative.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add water to a stew pan and bring to a boil an hour and a half before dinner.

  2. Stir in the salt and bay leaves.

  3. Add the sliced onion and carrots.

  4. Add the chopped lettuce and chopped apples half an hour before dinner.

  5. Finally, add the vermicelli or alternative ingredient just 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. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

  2. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Hold their shape and add sweetness as they soften during simmering.
Tart apples
Add acidity and a fruity brightness that balances the savory broth.
Vermicelli
Adds body and starch to thicken the stew slightly when added at the end.

The step that matters

Add the vermicelli just before serving. Thin pasta softens quickly in hot liquid and can turn mushy or absorb too much broth if left to simmer too long.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, beans, lettuce, corn):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, beans, lettuce, corn. 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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