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Chicken Spanish Stew

A stew of chicken, salt pork, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peas simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Fry the salt pork in the bottom of a kettle.

  2. Add the chicken and nearly cover with water.

  3. Add the red pepper and let simmer until the chicken is nearly done.

  4. Stir in the garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peas.

  5. Boil once, then thicken with flour dissolved in a little cold water.

Serve

  1. Serve topped with shredded green pepper.

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. Pork + chickentop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat into the kettle, flavouring the base for frying and browning the chicken.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce when boiled.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the stew's liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour dissolved in cold water. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps; dissolving it in cold water first lets it disperse evenly, and the stew must boil briefly so the starch thickens fully.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, chicken, pepper, clove, garlic, tomato, mushroom):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, chicken, pepper, clove, garlic, tomato, mushroom. 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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