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Beef Stew

A hearty stew of lean beef, tomatoes, okra, onions, corn, butter, salt, and pepper simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and okra work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef in a pot and cover it with water, then put the pot over moderate heat.

  2. Add the tomatoes, okra, onions, and corn.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the butter.

  4. Let the stew simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the vegetables are thick.

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 + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  4. Okra + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together161 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Lean beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that help build the stew's liquid and flavor.
Okra
Releases natural thickening starch as it cooks, helping the stew become thick.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body to the stew as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the stew.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 4 hours. A gentle simmer lets lean beef break down slowly and become tender without toughening. Boiling hard can make the meat firm and dry, and it can break up the vegetables too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, okra, corn, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, okra, corn, pepper, butter. 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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