Skip to main content
Main

Brunswick Stew

A stew of chicken, veal liver, corn, tomatoes, butter, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the chickens until the meat separates from the bones.

  2. Boil the veal liver and mash it.

  3. Cut the chicken into pieces, removing bones and skin.

Make the stew

  1. Return the chicken and liver to the pot, adding corn, tomatoes, milk, and seasoning.

  2. Boil until thick, stirring carefully to prevent scorching.

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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and body of the stew as it cooks down.
Veal liver
Mashed into the stew, it adds richness and depth of flavor.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body to the stew as it thickens.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that balances the rich milk and meat.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and helps thicken the stew as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring while the stew thickens. Milk and starchy corn settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot easily during a long boil. Stirring carefully keeps the stew from sticking and burning, which would give it a bitter, off flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, liver, butter, corn, tomato, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, liver, butter, corn, tomato, milk. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes