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Savoury Wheat Dish

A wheat-based stew cooked with onions, tomatoes, celery, herbs, curry powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Savoury Wheat Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the wheat

  1. Wash and soak the wheat for a few hours or overnight.

  2. Cook the wheat slowly in enough water to cover for 3 hours.

Prepare the vegetables and herbs

  1. Peel and finely chop the onions, tomatoes, and celery.

  2. Fry the vegetables in olive oil or nut butter for 15 minutes.

  3. Simmer the mixed herbs and bay leaves in ½ cup water for 10 minutes, then discard the leaves.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the herb liquid, fried vegetables, curry powder, salt, and milk to the cooked wheat. Mix thoroughly and pour into a casserole dish.

  2. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat
Forms the bulk of the stew and gives it a chewy, hearty texture as it cooks.
Onions
Break down when fried and sweeten the stew while adding savory depth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that help flavor and soften the mixture during baking.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness and mellows the spices during the long bake.
Olive oil or nut butter
Carries flavor from the fried vegetables and adds fat for richness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, tomato, celery, olive, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, tomato, celery, olive, milk. 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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