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Vegetable Ragout

A thickened vegetable stew made with boiled potatoes, apples, beets, raisins, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vegetable Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add water, stirring until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Add salt, the vegetables, raisins, and lemon juice.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil again 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled irish potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, starchy body of the ragout.
Raw apples
Add tartness and a fresh, juicy texture to the mixture.
Cooked beets
Contribute earthy sweetness and a deep colour to the dish.
Seedless raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
White flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the roux base.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter for a minute before liquid is added so its starch can swell and thicken evenly. Adding water too quickly can cause lumps, and the sauce will not reach full thickness if the starch is not gelatinized by boiling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, raisin, flour, butter, lemon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, raisin, flour, butter, lemon. 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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