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Modern Cookery

A stew of diced ham, aromatics, and stock thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew base

  1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the diced ham, shallots (or onion), cloves, mace, peppercorns, thyme, parsley, lemon thyme, winter savory, and lemon rind.

  3. Stew gently for about 1 hour, shaking the pan frequently.

Thicken and simmer

  1. Gradually sprinkle in the flour, mixing well.

  2. Slowly add the boiling stock, shaking the pan as you pour.

  3. Once 2 to 3 pints are added, pour in the rest at once and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

Strain

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large pan.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Adds savory meaty flavor that carries through the whole stew.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the stew base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth body as it is stirred in.
Stock
Forms the liquid of the stew and carries its flavor.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften slowly.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and stock. Flour clumps if it hits liquid unevenly. Sprinkling it in gradually while mixing well, then adding boiling stock slowly while shaking the pan, keeps the thickening smooth.

Swap the mace

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

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

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