Skip to main content
Main

Virginia Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, bacon, potatoes, corn, beans, tomatoes, and bread, seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Virginia Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, bring 3 gallons of water to a boil.

  2. Add the cut-up chickens and finely chopped bacon.

  3. Cook until the chicken meat separates from the bones.

  4. Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and return it to the pot.

  5. Stir in the mashed potatoes, corn, butter beans, and tomatoes.

  6. Season with black pepper, red pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  7. Add the bread when the stew is nearly done.

  8. Stir constantly as it thickens, adding more water if it becomes too thick.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

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

  3. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

  4. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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

Chickens
Provide the meat and body of the stew as they cook into the broth.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky flavour to the broth as it renders.
Irish potatoes
Mashed into the stew, they thicken it and add body.
Green corn
Adds sweetness and texture to the stew.
Green butter beans
Add starchy body and a creamy texture to the stew.
Light bread
Soaks up liquid and helps the stew thicken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the bread and stirring as it thickens. Bread added too early can break down and turn the stew gluey, while stirring keeps starches from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot. Adding water corrects over-thickening.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipes