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Beef Stew

A hearty stew of beef, potatoes, and spices simmered in stock and water, finished with dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Heat stock, water, salt, and pepper to boiling.

  2. Bruise spices, then cook them in a little water for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain spices into the soup.

Make the thickening

  1. Cook fat and flour together.

  2. Wet the mixture with cold broth.

  3. Strain the mixture into the soup.

Finish the stew

  1. Add dumplings.

  2. Cook dumplings until soft.

  3. Add meat.

  4. Add potato dice.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the broth as its starch swells with heat and liquid.
Dripping
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor, and cooks with the flour into a roux.
Meat
Provides the main savory body and chewy texture of the stew.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk and soft texture, and slightly thicken the broth as they cook.
Dry dumplings or noodles
Absorb broth and become soft, adding body to each serving.
Stock
Forms the main liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole stew.

The step that matters

Wetting the flour and fat mixture. Flour clumps when hot fat meets liquid unevenly. Adding cold broth gradually to the cooked roux and then straining lets the starch disperse smoothly, so the stew thickens without lumps.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, clove, allspice, celery, meat):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, clove, allspice, celery, meat. 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.

More beef stew recipes

with Dumplings 30Brazilian 20French 20Spiced 17Pudding 16English 15 See all 357 →

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