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Meat Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of meat, potatoes, tomatoes, and dumplings simmered in seasoned water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a large pot, combine the water, salt, black pepper, red pepper, tomatoes, potatoes, meat, and onion.

  2. Boil for about 30 minutes.

Make the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, sift the flour and add a little salt.

  2. Dip some of the boiling water into the flour to make a stiff dough.

  3. Let the dough cool slightly, then knead until smooth.

  4. Roll out the dough very thin and cut into small dumplings.

Finish the stew

  1. Add the dumplings to the stew and boil for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.

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

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms a stiff dough that holds together as thin dumplings in the broth.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the stew and adding body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid, giving the stew its tangy base flavor.
Meat
Releases flavor into the broth as it simmers for half an hour.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Make the stiff dough. Flour needs the right amount of hot water and enough kneading to develop gluten. Too much water makes a sticky dough that falls apart, while too little makes dumplings tough and dry.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, potato, meat, onion, flour):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato, meat, onion, flour. 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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