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Stewed Watercresses

A stew of boiled watercress with cullis, cream, salt, pepper, and flour, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Watercresses

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the watercress

  1. Pick and wash the watercress.

  2. Boil the watercress until half done, then drain and squeeze dry.

  3. Chop the watercress and place it in a stewpan.

Stew and serve

  1. Add cullis, cream, salt, pepper, and flour to the stewpan.

  2. Stew gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve with fried bread on the side.

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. Watercress + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Watercress
Forms the bulk of the stew and gives it its fresh, peppery flavour.
Cullis
Adds liquid and body, helping the stew become a spoonable consistency.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the stew.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it stews, giving the stew a fuller body.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 10 minutes. Gentle heat keeps the cream from curdling and lets the flour thicken the liquid evenly. A hard boil can split the cream and leave lumps where the flour has not dispersed.

“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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