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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of rabbit or other meat with tomatoes, onions, beans, corn, potatoes, and optional salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into medium-sized pieces and place it in a pot with 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Heat the pot gradually over low heat.

Cook the stew

  1. Add the tomatoes, onion, Lima beans, and green corn to the pot.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook gently for about 4 hours.

  3. Stir in the sliced potatoes and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until they are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove any bones.

  2. Melt the butter in the stew 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. Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  3. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the savory base and rich, meaty flavour of the stew as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, building the stew's tangy, saucy body.
Potatoes
Soften during long cooking and thicken the stew slightly through released starch.
Lima beans
Hold their shape during simmering and add a creamy, starchy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished stew a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Gentle simmering of the meat. Heating gradually over low heat and cooking gently keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. Rapid boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the broth cloudy.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, tomato, onion, corn, pepper, potato, butter. 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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