Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe the meat, remove all small pieces of bone, and cut into small pieces.
Put the larger bones and tough meat into a kettle and cover with cold water.
Brown and simmer
Dredge the remaining meat with flour, salt, and pepper, then brown it in melted fat in a frying pan.
Brown the onions in the same pan.
Add the browned meat and onions to the kettle and let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours until the meat is tender.
Half an hour before serving, add the turnip, carrots, and potatoes.
Fifteen minutes before serving, add the dumplings and cook for 15 minutes.
Finish and serve
Remove the dumplings when done, then take out the bones and fat.
If necessary, thicken the gravy with flour and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Optionally, add ½ cup strained tomatoes.
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.
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 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
- Long simmering turns tough cuts tender and releases flavor into the broth.
- Flour
- Dredging the meat helps it brown, and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
- Potatoes
- Starch that softens during simmering and helps thicken and body the gravy.
- Onion
- Browning in fat builds sweet, savory flavor that carries into the broth.
- Beef drippings
- Fat for browning the meat and onions, adding rich savory flavor.
The step that matters
Browning the meat before simmering. Browning in hot fat creates Maillard flavors that a simmer alone cannot produce, so the meat should be browned well and not steamed in a crowded pan.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, potato, pepper, flour):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Okrafits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, potato, pepper, flour. 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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