Name: Braised Beef with Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 1-½ pound Beef Bottom Round Roast, Cubed; ¼ cups Flour; 1-½ Tablespoon Salt; 2 teaspoons Black Pepper; 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil, Divided; 6 cups Crimini Mushrooms, Cleaned With A Damp Cloth And Sliced; 1 whole Onion, Sliced Thinly; 4 cloves Garlic, Chopped; 1 teaspoon Paprika; 1 teaspoon Fresh Thyme Leaves (pulled Off The Sprigs); 5 Tablespoons Tomato Paste; 1-½ Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce; 10 ounces, weight Fresh Sunburst Tomatoes Or Cherry Tomatoes; 2 whole Fresno Red Chili Peppers, Stem And Seeds Removed, Sliced; 2 cups Beef Broth; 2 Tablespoons Chopped Flat Leaf Parsley; 1 box (1 Lb. Size) Campanelle Shaped Pasta

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,700 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, olive, mushroom, onion, garlic):

Thymefits better
Cuminfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, olive, mushroom, onion, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Beef	100g cooked	250
Pasta	1 cup cooked (140g)	220
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Cherry	1 cup (138g)	87
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Seed	not in our table	0

Braised Beef with Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms