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Different Stews

A hearty stew of meat, potatoes or barley, vegetables, and herbs simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Different Stews

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the meat into chunks and brown in a pot.

  2. Add the potatoes or barley and cover with water.

  3. Incorporate the vegetables of your choice.

  4. Season with herbs and spices to taste.

  5. Simmer on low heat for several hours until the meat is tender.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + carrottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, after long simmering, becomes tender and rich.
Potatoes or barley
Adds starch that thickens the broth and gives the stew body.
Vegetables
Contribute sweetness, moisture, and color to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat for several hours. Tough connective tissue in cuts like flank, rump, or neck only breaks down into tender, gelatinous texture with long, gentle heat. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can leave it chewy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, parsley. 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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