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Dutch Stew

A stew of shoulder mutton, onion, cabbage, potatoes, and dripping, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Dutch Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the fat in a pot and fry the chopped onion for a few minutes.

  2. Add the mutton and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the cabbage (cut into quarters) and sliced potatoes, ensuring they are wet with dripping.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then cook slowly until everything is tender.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Shoulder mutton
Provides the main meat, releasing flavour into the stew as it cooks.
Dripping
Fat that fries the onion and coats the vegetables, carrying flavour and adding richness.
Cabbage
Bulks out the stew, becoming tender and sweet during slow cooking.
Potatoes
Soften during slow cooking, thickening the stew slightly and adding body.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until everything is tender. Tough shoulder meat needs long, gentle cooking so its connective tissue breaks down into tender, juicy meat. Rapid boiling can toughen the meat and break up the vegetables.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, potato, 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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