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Vegetable Stew

A stew of carrots, beet‑roots, onions, new potatoes, tomatoes simmered in oil, salt, celery seeds, red pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the carrots, beet-roots, and onions.

  2. Peel and quarter the new potatoes.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine all the vegetables with the oil, salt, celery seeds, red pepper, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 1 hour.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Hold their shape during the long simmer and add natural sweetness to the broth.
Beet-roots
Add earthy sweetness and a deep colour that tints the whole stew.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften into the broth.
New potatoes
Add starch that thickens the stew slightly and gives it body.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering slowly for 1 hour. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the vegetables tender without breaking them apart. A hard boil can make the potatoes disintegrate and cloud the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, potato, tomato, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, potato, tomato, celery, pepper. 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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