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Lesso7i

A hearty stew of fish, beef, pork, liver, and vegetables simmered in milk and tomatoes, finished with crackers and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the onions, garlic, and pork.

  3. Sauté until the onions are translucent.

  4. Stir in the fish, beef, and liver.

  5. Cook until browned.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the tomatoes, potatoes, turnip, carrot, celery, and molasses.

  2. Pour in the milk.

  3. Bring to a simmer.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  5. Stir in the crushed crackers and cornmeal.

  6. Cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  7. Beat the egg and stir it in just 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + oniontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Crushed crackers thicken the stew and help it hold together.
Cornmeal
Cornmeal thickens the broth as it cooks.
Milk
Milk adds richness and a creamy body to the stew.
Molasses
Molasses adds sweetness and deep color to the stew.
Egg
Egg, stirred in at the end, can enrich and lightly bind the broth.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes add acidity and savory depth to the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the hot pot. Milk can curdle or scorch when it meets very high heat or acidic tomatoes. Keeping the heat moderate and bringing the pot only to a gentle simmer helps the milk stay smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, fish, potato, carrot, onion, garlic, pork):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Chivebetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, fish, potato, carrot, onion, garlic, pork. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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