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Pan Dowdy

A stew of sliced pork and apples cooked with molasses, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pan Dowdy

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the stew

  1. Fry the pork slices slowly in a pot.

  2. Layer the sliced apples and cream of tartar paste in the pot.

  3. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

Add liquids and cook

  1. Add molasses, sugar, and cold water.

  2. Cook for 45 minutes.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

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

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Soften during cooking to give the stew body and a fruity sweetness.
Pork
Adds savory flavor and richness from its fat as it fries.
Cream of tartar paste
Adds acidity, giving a tart note that balances the sweetness.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and deep caramel-like sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, cream, molasses, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, cream, molasses, sugar. 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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