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Parsnip Stew

A stew of pork, onions, potatoes, and parsnips thickened with batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Parsnip Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Partly fry the pork slices in a pan.

  2. Add enough hot water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil.

Cook and thicken

  1. Stir in the chopped onion, diced potatoes, and diced parsnips.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour in the batter to thicken 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + parsniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsniptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Parsnips
Soften during simmering and add body and sweetness to the stew.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding body and thickness to the broth.
Batter
Thickens the cooking liquid when poured in near the end of cooking.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, potato):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, potato. 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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