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Workman's Dinner Pail Dish

A hearty stew of beef and mutton cooked slowly in a pail oven with Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Workman's Dinner Pail Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a crock, combine the meat, flour, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, salt, pepper, and onion.

  2. Cover the mixture with boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook in a pail oven for five hours.

  2. Remove any fat that rises to the top 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Shin of beef
Long cooking breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Shoulder of beef
Fatty, collagen-rich cut that becomes tender and moist after slow cooking.
Neck of mutton
Collagen-rich cut that softens into tender meat and thickens the liquid as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a thicker, gravy-like sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth that seasons the meat and liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the mixture with boiling water. Starting with boiling water brings the contents up to temperature quickly, so the meat begins cooking evenly and the flour can hydrate and thicken the liquid instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, butter, sauce, tomato, ketchup, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, butter, sauce, tomato, ketchup, pepper. 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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