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Brunswick Stew

A hearty stew of chicken, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, butter beans, bacon, and lemon, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in ½ gallon of water until tender enough to pick apart.

  2. Remove the bones and return the chicken to the pot.

Build the stew

  1. Add tomatoes, potatoes, corn, butter beans, bacon, and butter.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the sliced lemon.

  4. When the vegetables are cooked, thicken the stew with flour mixed with milk.

  5. If the stew is too thick, add a little boiling water.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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, which becomes tender and is pulled apart into the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth, building its savory, tangy base.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, adding body and helping thicken the stew.
Corn
Adds sweetness and texture to the stew.
Butter beans
Add creamy texture and body, holding up through long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the stew as its starch gelatinizes in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the stew with flour and milk. Flour must be mixed smoothly with milk before it goes in, and added once the vegetables are cooked. Added dry or too early, it clumps or leaves a raw floury taste. Starch thickens only when heated, so the stew should keep simmering briefly after it is added.

“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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