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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, bacon, tomatoes, beans, onions, potatoes, corn, and butter simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in an iron pot.

  2. Add 2 medium-sized chickens and 2 slices of bacon; boil until the meat falls off the bones.

  3. Remove the chickens, chop the meat finely, and return the meat and bones to the pot.

  4. Add 6 large tomatoes, 2 pints of butter beans, and 6 medium-sized onions.

  5. Season with salt, red pepper, and black pepper to taste.

  6. Cook for 1 hour, then add 6 sliced Irish potatoes.

  7. Half an hour before serving, add 6 ears of corn and ¼ pound of butter.

  8. Cook in a thick iron pot, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Supply the meat and bones that flavour the broth and become the body of the stew.
Butter beans
Add creamy starch that thickens the stew slightly and gives it body.
Irish potatoes
Release starch as they cook, further thickening the stew and adding substance.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender texture to the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the broth's flavour.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and body, giving the stew its savoury, tangy base.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly in a thick iron pot. Thick stews containing starch and sugar scorch easily on the bottom of the pot. Constant stirring keeps solids from sticking and burning, which would give a bitter, off flavour to the whole batch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, butter, beans, pepper, potato, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, butter, beans, pepper, potato, corn. 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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