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Stewed Squirrel

A stew made from squirrel, water, bacon, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Stew

  1. In a pot, combine the cleaned squirrel pieces, water, and bacon.

  2. Stew slowly until the squirrel is tender.

Thicken and season

  1. In a bowl, mix equal parts butter and flour to create a paste.

  2. Add the paste to the pot to thicken the stew.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Squirrel
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid.
Butter and flour
Form a paste that thickens the stew as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stew slowly until the squirrel is tender. Gentle, low-heat simmering breaks down connective tissue in the meat gradually. Boiling hard can toughen the proteins and leave the meat dry and chewy.

“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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