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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of squirrel, beans, corn, potatoes, and pork simmered with onions, tomatoes, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. Boil water with salt for 5 minutes.

  2. Add onion, beans, corn, salt pork, potatoes, pepper, and squirrels.

  3. Cover and stew for 2 hours.

  4. Add sugar and tomatoes.

  5. Stew for 1 more hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Ten minutes before finishing, add butter pieces.

  2. Bring to a boil again.

  3. Adjust salt and pepper as needed.

  4. Serve in soup plates.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrels
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Butter beans or lima beans
Add starchy body and a creamy texture to the stew.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during stewing, thickening the broth and adding body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a bright flavor that balances the richness of the meat and fat.
Butter
Adds richness and body; flour coating helps it thicken the broth as it melts in.
Salt pork
Releases fat and savory flavor into the stew as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the butter at the end. Butter rolled in flour must be stirred in and brought back to a boil so the flour cooks and thickens the broth. Adding it too early or too late can leave the stew greasy or floury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, corn, potato, pork, pepper, sugar, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, corn, potato, pork, pepper, sugar, tomato. 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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