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Beef Stew with Vegetables

A hearty stew of beef and vegetables simmered in water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Stew with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut the stew meat into pieces.

  2. Cover the meat with boiling water and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until nearly done.

  3. Add the potatoes and other vegetables, and cook until tender.

Season and finish

  1. Season with salt to taste.

  2. Thicken the stew if desired, using rice or leftover cereal.

  3. Alternatively, cook the meat and vegetables in boiling water for 10 minutes, then transfer to a fireless cooker for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Stew meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor as it becomes tender during long simmering.
Potatoes
Add starch that softens during cooking and can help thicken the broth slightly.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the stew.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor that deepens as the stew cooks.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat until nearly done. Tough cuts like neck, aitch bone, or shank need long, gentle simmering so their connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen the muscle fibers, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, carrot, 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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