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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, tomatoes, bacon, onions, corn, 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

  1. In a soup pot, place the chicken and cover it with salted water.

  2. Let it stew until tender, starting the hen earlier than the young chickens.

Make the stew

  1. In a separate bowl, season the tomatoes with butter, onion, sugar, bacon, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the seasoned tomatoes to the pot with the chicken.

  3. One hour before serving, add the corn kernels to the pot.

  4. Cook until the chicken falls apart, then remove the bones 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 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
Slow stewing turns the tough meat tender and rich-flavored, and the broth gains body.
Tomatoes
Acidity and sweetness give the stew its bright, tangy base and thicken it as they break down.
Green corn
Adds sweetness and a fresh, tender texture to the stew.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.
Bacon
Its fat and smoky flavor add savory depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Adding the corn one hour before serving. Corn kernels cook quickly and turn starchy and dull if simmered too long, so timing the addition keeps them tender and sweet.

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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