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First Rate Western Stew

A stew of mutton or lamb with potatoes, onions, herbs, and tomato ketchup, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

First Rate Western Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pot, combine the mutton or lamb, potatoes, pepper, salt, onions, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  2. Add just enough water to cover the ingredients.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  2. Stir in the tomato ketchup and bring to a boil.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

Mutton or lamb
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavorful during long, gentle stewing.
Potatoes
Absorb the cooking liquid and thicken the stew as they soften.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they cook down into the broth.
Tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and sweet tomato flavor to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 2 hours. Gentle heat, rather than a hard boil, lets the tough connective tissue in the meat break down slowly and become tender without drying out. Boiling too hard toughens muscle fibers and can leave the meat stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, pepper, parsley, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, pepper, parsley, tomato, ketchup. 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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