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Game Stew

A stew of game joints simmered with ham, butter, shallots, carrot, spices, veal stock, sherry, and optional mushrooms, served with fried snippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Game Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Arrange the game joints in a clean stewpan and cover them to keep them clean.

  2. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter.

  3. Add the diced ham, minced shallots, sliced carrot, cloves, bay leaves, peppercorns, mace, thyme, and parsley.

  4. Stew over gentle heat, stirring often, until the saucepan sides are reddish-brown.

  5. Mix in the flour and let it take on a little color.

Add stock and simmer

  1. Gradually add the veal stock and sherry.

  2. Make sure the sauce boils with each addition.

  3. Add the game birds.

  4. Boil for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain the sauce to remove fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour it over the game joints.

  2. Heat the game slowly in the sauce until just before boiling.

  3. Serve immediately with delicately fried snippets around the dish.

  4. If using mushrooms, add them with the other seasonings in the butter.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Game
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long slow simmer in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the sauce base.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the sauce as it stews.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it cling to the meat.
Veal stock
Gives the sauce body and a savory, meaty backbone.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic richness that balances the savory stock.

The step that matters

Gradually add the veal stock and sherry. Adding liquid slowly while the sauce boils lets the flour disperse and cook smoothly, preventing lumps and keeping the sauce evenly thickened.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, shallot, carrot, clove, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, shallot, carrot, clove, thyme, parsley. 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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