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Virginia Stewed Chicken

A stew of diced chicken, tomatoes, green pepper, corn, and hominy simmered in a chicken stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Virginia Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine chicken bones and cover with cold water in a kettle.

  2. Heat and simmer for 2 hours, then strain the stock.

Make the stew

  1. Add the diced chicken, tomatoes, green pepper, and corn to the stock.

  2. Dissolve the flour in cold water.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the stew.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with squares of fried hominy.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken bones
Simmered for two hours to give the stock its body and savoury flavour.
Flour
Dissolved in cold water first, then stirred in to thicken the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fresh flavour, and soften into the stew.
Corn
Adds sweetness and texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Dissolving the flour in cold water. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch grains swell on the outside before the inside can hydrate. Mixing it into cold water first gives a smooth slurry that thickens the stew evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, corn, flour. 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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