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Swiss Stew

A veal stew with potatoes, onions, vinegar, stock, ketchup, and a flour-thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Swiss Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into neat pieces and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Brown the veal in a little dripping in a stewpan.

  3. Wash and peel the potatoes and onion, then cut them in half.

  4. Boil the potatoes and onion for a few minutes, then drain and add to the veal.

Simmer and finish

  1. Mince the onion and add it to the meat along with the vinegar and stock.

  2. Cover the pan and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour and let it boil.

  4. Stir in the ketchup and serve.

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

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and savoury flavour that the stew is built around.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and add body and starch to the stew.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and carries the flavour through the stew.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it a smooth, cohesive body.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be fully dispersed in the liquid and brought to a boil so its starch swells and thickens the gravy. Added in clumps or not boiled, it stays lumpy and floury-tasting.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, onion, vinegar, flour, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, onion, vinegar, flour, 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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