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A Spanish Olio

A stew of veal, beef, mutton, onions, garlic, peppercorns, mace, cloves, turnips, parsnip, carrots, cabbage, endive, celery, pumpkin, sorrel, and fowl, simmered 5–6 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine veal, beef, mutton, onions, garlic, peppercorns, mace, cloves, turnips, parsnip, carrots, cabbage, endive, celery, pumpkin, and sorrel in a large pan.

  2. Add enough water to cover the ingredients.

Simmer and season

  1. Simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Season with salt to taste.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Mace + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Veal + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Its collagen breaks down into gelatin during the long simmer, giving the broth body and tender meat.
Beef
Releases savoury meat flavour into the broth and contributes gelatin for body and texture.
Mutton
Adds rich, savoury meat flavour and gelatin that thickens the broth over the long cooking time.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet during simmering, adding aromatic depth to the broth.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and release mild sweetness into the broth.
Carrots
Soften and release natural sweetness that balances the savoury meat flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer for 5 to 6 hours. Keep the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling emulsifies fat into the broth, making it cloudy, and toughens the meat proteins, while slow heat lets collagen soften gradually.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, mutton, onion, garlic, clove, turnip):

  1. Pepperbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, mutton, onion, garlic, clove, turnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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