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Brunswick Stew

A stew of chicken, bacon, tomatoes, lima beans, corn, and butter simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and corn work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 222 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, add 2 quarts of water and the cut-up chicken.

  2. Add the small pieces of bacon and bring to a gentle boil for 4 hours.

  3. After 4 hours, add the tomatoes, lima beans, corn, salt, pepper, sugar, and butter, then boil for an additional hour.

  4. Remove all bones before serving.

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. Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + lima beanstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and rich flavor that the broth is built on.
Bacon
Adds smoky fat that flavors the broth as it simmers.
Lima beans
Add starchy body and a mild, buttery texture to the stew.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender kernels that thicken the broth slightly.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, helping build the stew's savory flavor.

The step that matters

Long, gentle simmer. Simmering the chicken and bacon for 4 hours at a gentle boil extracts collagen and fat into the broth, giving body and depth. A hard rolling boil can toughen meat and cloud the broth, so keep the heat low enough for small bubbles.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansthe original
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, corn, pepper, sugar, butter, egg. 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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