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Stewed Fowls

A stew of chicken or fowl with butter, carrots, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Stewed Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in a six-pint stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced carrot and onion for five minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  3. Add the pieces of fowl, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Dredge in the flour, stirring to mix thoroughly with the butter.

Stew and serve

  1. Gradually add the stock in three intervals, followed by the tomatoes.

  2. Stir well and let the mixture come slowly to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam and reduce to a simmer.

  4. Add the sliced mushrooms and chopped parsley.

  5. Bring to a boil again, then simmer for fifteen minutes.

  6. Skim, baste, and serve.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl or chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the stock.
Butter
Carries the frying of the vegetables and coats the flour, adding richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a light sauce when dredged into the butter before liquid is added.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the chicken and becomes the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce, with their pieces softening as they simmer.

The step that matters

Dredging the flour into the butter. Stirring the flour thoroughly into the fat before adding liquid coats each grain so it can hydrate evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, carrot, pepper, flour, tomato, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, carrot, pepper, flour, tomato, mushroom. 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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