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First Rate Western Stew

A hearty stew of mutton or lamb with potatoes, onions, herbs, and tomato ketchup, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

First Rate Western Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a large pot, combine the mutton or lamb, potatoes, salt, pepper, onions, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  2. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Stir in the tomato ketchup and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of mutton or lamb
Provides the rich meat and fat that flavour the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Soften during the long simmer and thicken the stew as their starch releases.
Onions
Break down during simmering to add sweetness and body to the broth.
Tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness, giving the stew its tangy, reddish flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets the tough connective tissue in the mutton or lamb slowly break down into tender meat without toughening it. A rolling boil would firm the meat and cloud the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, pepper, parsley, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, pepper, parsley, tomato, 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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