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Chili Stew

A stew of tomatoes, okra, onions, and chili pepper cooked in lard with flour, sugar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chili Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the lard in a pot.

  2. Add the sliced onions and brown them with the flour.

  3. Stir in the canned tomatoes and okra.

Season and finish

  1. Add the baking soda, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Incorporate a small amount of garlic.

  3. Add the chili pepper half an hour before serving.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Okra + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stew and helps the onions brown evenly.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they brown.
Canned tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid that forms the body of the stew.
Okra
Adds body and a soft, thickening texture as it cooks.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavor.

The step that matters

Add the chili pepper half an hour before serving. Chili flavor compounds build with heat and time, but prolonged cooking can make them harsh or bitter. Adding it late gives a balanced, fresher chili flavor without overpowering the stew.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour, okra, sugar, pepper, garlic):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour, okra, sugar, pepper, garlic. 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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