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Gypsy Stew

A stew of ground steak or veal with celery, cheese, walnuts, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gypsy Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a pot, combine the ground steak or veal and chopped celery.

  2. Add boiling water to cover and stew until tender.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese and chopped walnuts.

  5. Add the milk and thicken the stew with the flour.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with toast points.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 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

Ground round steak or veal
Provides the meat base and savory flavor of the stew.
Celery
Adds aroma and a crisp, vegetal note as it softens in the stew.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and savory flavor, and melts into the stew.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor against the soft stew.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the liquid in the stew.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the stew by absorbing liquid and swelling with heat.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump. Stirring it in thoroughly and keeping the stew at a steady simmer lets the starch hydrate evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, cheese, walnut, milk, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, cheese, walnut, milk, flour. 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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