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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, tomatoes, corn, bacon, and seasonings simmered together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Place the chicken in a soup pot and cover with water. Add salt to taste.

  2. Let the chicken stew until it begins to look tender. If using a hen, start cooking it earlier than the young chickens.

Build the stew

  1. Season the chopped tomatoes with butter, onion, sugar, bacon, pepper, and salt in a separate bowl, then add them to the pot with the chicken.

  2. Add the corn kernels to the pot one hour before serving.

Finish and serve

  1. Cook until the chicken is tender and falls apart.

  2. Remove any bones when 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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides meat and savoury body to the stew as it becomes tender.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and liquid that form the base of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the seasoned tomatoes.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that deepens the overall flavour.
Corn
Adds sweetness and texture as its kernels cook in the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the corn one hour before serving. Corn kernels cook quickly and become starchy and mushy if simmered too long, so timing them late keeps their sweetness and bite.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, butter, sugar, pepper, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, butter, sugar, pepper, corn. 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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