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Beef Stew

A stew of roast beef slices simmered with vinegar, mustard, jelly, butter, spices, turnip, potato, onion, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the beef slices and cover with water or meat broth.

  2. Add pepper vinegar, mustard, jelly, butter, salt, celery seed, black pepper, grated turnip, mashed potato, onion, and parsley.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until heated through.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Provides the main meat and body of the stew.
Raw turnip
Grated turnip adds bulk and body as it softens in the liquid.
Irish potato
Mashed potato thickens the stew and adds body.
Pepper vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich beef flavor.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, vinegar, mustard, butter, celery, potato):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, vinegar, mustard, butter, celery, potato. 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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