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Spanish Stew

A hearty stew of beef, tomatoes, onions, and macaroni simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold beef into small pieces.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the beef, tomatoes, onions, and macaroni.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover and cook for 3-4 hours until the meat is reduced to shreds.

  2. If the gravy boils away, add boiling water to achieve the desired thickness.

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

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

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

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

  3. 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

Beef
Slow cooking breaks the meat down into shreds that give the stew its body.
Macaroni
Starch from the broken pasta thickens the gravy as it cooks down.
Tomatoes
Adds acidity and liquid that form the base of the gravy.
Onions
Soften during long cooking, adding sweetness and depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding boiling water to the gravy. If the gravy boils away, the stew can become dry and over-concentrated. Adding boiling water rather than cold keeps the cooking temperature steady and loosens the gravy without stopping the simmer.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion. 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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