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Squirrel Stewed

A stew of squirrel pieces cooked in lard with onion, flour, water, and puff pastry strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Squirrel Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the squirrels carefully, cutting a slit under the throat and turning the skin inside out to enclose the hair.

  2. Place the squirrel pieces in cold water.

Make the stew

  1. Heat the lard in a stew pan.

  2. Add the sliced onion and flour; fry until the flour is brown.

  3. Add the water and the squirrel pieces, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook until tender.

  5. When the squirrel is half done, add the puff pastry strips and butter.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrel
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in the liquid.
Lard
Adds fat for frying the onion and flour and carries flavour through the stew.
Flour
Browned with the onion and fat, it helps thicken the stew liquid.
Puff pastry strips
Added partway through cooking, they absorb the broth and add a rich, flaky texture.

The step that matters

Adding the puff pastry strips. Adding the pastry when the squirrel is half done lets it soak up the broth and cook through without turning soggy or dissolving before the meat is tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, 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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