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Dutch Stew

A savory stew of cooked meat simmered in a butter, vinegar, and gravy mixture with onions, bay leaves, cloves, and optional red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and red wine work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 849 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Dutch Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, onion, bay leaves, and cloves, then sauté until fragrant.

  3. Stir in gravy or bouillon and beaten egg, then heat until hot.

Finish the stew

  1. Add squares of cooked meat and stir to combine.

  2. If using, add red wine.

  3. Adjust sweetness with more sugar.

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. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Vinegar + red winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thickens the gravy as it heats and gives the stew a richer body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the gravy.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds a touch of sweetness.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth as it cooks in the butter.
Gravy or bouillon
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the rest of the flavors.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg before heating. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture must be brought up to heat gently while stirring. Heating too fast can scramble the egg and leave lumps instead of a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, sugar, clove, egg, red wine, meat):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, sugar, clove, egg, red wine, meat. 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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