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To Make English Stew

A stew of sliced cooked meat with pickled cabbage or walnuts, ketchup, vinegar, and water, simmered for about 30 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make English Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into thin slices and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  2. Chop the pickles and sprinkle them over the meat.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the water, vinegar from the pickles, ketchup, and any reserved gravy.

  2. Stir the mixture and pour it over the meat.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the meat in front of a fire, in a Dutch oven, or in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ketchup + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Forms the body of the dish, and gentle heating keeps the slices from drying out.
Pickled cabbage or walnuts
Adds sharp, tangy acidity that brightens the rich meat.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato acidity that deepen the savory flavor.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Heating the meat in the sauce. The meat is already cooked, so it only needs warming through. Gentle, moderate heat for the stated time keeps the slices moist and tender, while overheating would toughen the proteins and dry them out.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, ketchup, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, ketchup, vinegar. 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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