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Spanish Stew

A hearty chicken stew with tomatoes, peppers, peas, mushrooms, and potatoes, served with mashed potatoes or rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and joint the chicken, then fry until browned.

  2. Shred the peppers, removing the seeds, and slice the tomatoes, onion, and garlic.

Make the stew

  1. Place the chicken in a kettle with the tomatoes, peppers, and onion, then add the boiling water.

  2. Cover the kettle and simmer until the chicken is tender.

  3. Remove the chicken, strain the remaining contents, and rub the vegetables through a sieve.

  4. Return the vegetable puree to the kettle, add the peas, mushrooms, grated potatoes, and salt.

  5. Cook until the potatoes are tender, then add the chicken back in and heat thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve with a border of mashed potatoes or boiled rice.

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

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

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, and frying first browns the surface for flavor.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, and break down into the puree that thickens the stew.
Red peppers
Contribute sweetness and aroma, and their flesh breaks down into the sieved base.
Potatoes
Grated potatoes release starch that thickens the stew as they cook.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth as it softens into the vegetable base.

The step that matters

Rub the vegetables through a sieve. Pressing the cooked tomatoes, peppers, and onion through a sieve forms a smooth puree; skipping or rushing this leaves coarse pieces and a thinner, uneven stew.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, pepper, peas, mushroom, potato, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, pepper, peas, mushroom, potato, onion. 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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