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Beef Stew

A hearty stew of beef, carrots, celery, potatoes, and optional port wine, simmered slowly in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the pot

  1. Place the beef in a granite kettle.

  2. Cover the kettle with water.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce to taste.

Simmer

  1. Simmer slowly on the coolest part of the stove.

  2. After about 1.5 hours, add the carrots and celery.

  3. About 30 minutes before serving, add the potatoes.

  4. Keep the pot covered.

  5. Replenish with hot water as needed.

Thicken and serve

  1. When ready to serve, place meat and vegetables on a hot platter.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  3. Pour the thickened gravy over the meat.

  4. Add port wine shortly before serving, if desired.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, and soften as they cook in the broth.
Browned flour (in the method)
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour as they soften in the pot.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly on the coolest part of the stove. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and prevents the broth from boiling hard, which toughens muscle fibres and can make the gravy cloudy or overcooked.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, pepper, sauce, carrot, celery, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, pepper, sauce, carrot, celery, port wine. 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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