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Stewed Squirrel

A stew of young squirrels 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, then soak them in cold water for 1 hour.

Stew

  1. Place the squirrels in a stew pan with hot water and salt, bring to a boil, and skim.

  2. 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, then stir it into the stew while boiling.

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

  4. 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and, when browned with flour, a nutty flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a cream-like consistency when cooked with the butter.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. Heating the butter and flour slowly until only delicately brown cooks out raw starch taste and builds flavour without scorching. Too much heat burns the roux and makes the gravy bitter and dark.

“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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