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Beef with Broth

A hearty beef stew cooked with barley, oatmeal, parsley, thyme, onions or leeks, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef with Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into pieces and place in a large pot.

  2. Add barley, oatmeal, parsley, thyme, and onions or leeks.

  3. Cover with water and bring to a boil.

Simmer and season

  1. Reduce heat and simmer for several hours until the beef is tender.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Barley + thymetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in liquid.
Barley
Adds body and thickens the broth as its starch softens during long simmering.
Oatmeal
Helps thicken the stew and adds a soft, hearty texture to the broth.
Onions or leeks
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the beef is tender. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can make the beef stringy, while a low simmer lets collagen slowly break down into tender, moist meat. Keep the heat low and check for tenderness before serving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, barley, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, barley, parsley, thyme, 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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