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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of bacon, onion, tomatoes, red pepper, chicken, butter, bread crumbs, corn, mashed potatoes, and salt.

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

Make the stew

  1. In a large pot, cook the bacon and onion over medium heat for 1 hour.

  2. Add the tomatoes and boil for another hour.

  3. Stir in the red pepper and chickens, and stew until the chickens are cooked through, about 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in the butter and stale bread crumbs for gravy.

  2. Add the corn and mashed potatoes, seasoning with salt to taste.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews slowly for hours.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and liquid that form the base of the stew.
Stale bread crumbs
Thicken the liquid into a gravy as they absorb it.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy, giving it a smoother mouthfeel.
Irish potatoes
Starch that mashes into the stew, thickening it and adding body.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing the chickens until cooked through. Chicken needs to reach a safe internal temperature throughout, and cooking it in a long simmer alongside the tomatoes can make it fall off the bone. Checking that the meat is fully cooked before adding the gravy ingredients keeps the dish safe and the texture right.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, chicken, butter, bread, corn, 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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