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Chestnuts Stewed with Gravy

Chestnuts stewed in gravy with ham, bay leaves, butter, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 381 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Chestnuts Stewed with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a frying pan over low heat.

  2. Add a small piece of butter and chestnuts, shaking to remove the second skin.

  3. In a pot, layer the ham under the chestnuts.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add gravy and bay leaves, then simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Add thin strips of lemon rind to the gravy 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. Chestnut + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Chestnut + hamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the starchy, sweet bulk that becomes soft and tender as they simmer.
Gravy
Supplies the liquid that keeps the chestnuts moist during the long simmer.
Ham
Adds savory, salty meat flavor that seasons the gravy and chestnuts.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, fatty mouthfeel to the chestnuts.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle herbal aroma that infuses the gravy during simmering.

The step that matters

Removing the second skin. The thin inner skin of a chestnut is bitter and tough. Shaking the chestnuts over heat loosens it while they are warm, which is much easier than peeling cold nuts.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, lemon):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, lemon. 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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