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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, bacon, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, beans, and onions, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the chicken and bacon with enough water to cover the chicken.

  2. Cook until the chicken is nearly done.

  3. Add the tomatoes, corn, mashed potatoes, butter, lard, salt, pepper, butter beans, and onion.

  4. Just before finishing, mix the flour with a little water to make a smooth paste and stir it in.

  5. Cook until thickened and the chicken is fully cooked.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, cooking down into the stew as it simmers.
Ripe tomatoes
Supply liquid and acidity that give the stew its body and bright flavor.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body as its starch thickens the stew slightly.
Irish potatoes
Mashed potatoes release starch that helps thicken and enrich the broth.
Butter beans
Add starch and a creamy texture that holds up through long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, gravy-like consistency when stirred in as a paste.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with water before it goes in, or it clumps. Stirring the paste in near the end lets the liquid thicken evenly without lumps or a raw starch taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, corn, potato, butter, pepper, beans):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, corn, potato, butter, pepper, beans. 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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