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Stewed Squirrel

A stew of young squirrel meat simmered with butter, flour, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Squirrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin, clean, and quarter the squirrels.

  2. Soak them in cold water for 1 hour.

Stew

  1. Place the squirrels in a stew pan with hot water and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim.

  3. Cover and simmer until the meat is tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the butter, stir in the flour, and heat slowly until it turns a delicate brown.

  2. Blend enough gravy with the flour mixture to achieve a cream-like consistency.

  3. Stir the mixture into the stew while boiling.

  4. Simmer for 2 more minutes, then add the sherry and black pepper.

  5. Serve in a hot, covered dish.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Squirrels
Provide the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Carries flavor and, browned with flour, adds a nutty aroma to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cream-like consistency when cooked with fat and liquid.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, savory gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Squirrel meat is lean and tough, so it needs a covered, gentle simmer to break down connective tissue. Boiling hard can toughen the fibers and leave the meat dry.

“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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