Name: First Rate Western Stew
Ingredients: part of a breast of mutton or lamb, cut into pieces; potatoes, to taste; pepper, to taste; salt, to taste; 2 onions, chopped; 1 bunch of parsley, chopped; 1 bunch of sweet herbs, chopped; ½ cup of tomato ketchup; water, as needed

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

First Rate Western Stew

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, combine the mutton or lamb, potatoes, pepper, salt, onions, parsley, and sweet herbs.
Add enough water to cover the ingredients and simmer gently for 2 hours.
Stir in the tomato ketchup and bring to a boil.
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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Mutton or lamb: Provides the meat, whose fat and connective tissue enrich the broth during slow simmering.
Potatoes: Thicken the broth slightly as their starch releases during simmering and add body to the stew.
Onions: Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften and release their flavor into the broth.
Tomato ketchup: Adds acidity and sweet tomato flavor, rounding out the broth's taste.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 2 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. Boiling hard toughens muscle proteins and breaks up the potatoes, leaving a cloudy, uneven stew.

Swap the onion

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

Carrotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, pepper, parsley, tomato, ketchup. 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.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Potato Croquettes255 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

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First Rate Western Stew