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Braised Beef

A slow-cooked beef dish with butter, onion, carrot, tomatoes, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Melt the butter in a kettle over medium-high heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and brown it.

  3. Add the beef and brown on both sides.

  4. Stir in the sliced carrot and canned tomatoes.

Braise and serve

  1. Add enough water to cover the meat, then bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the beef and serve with gravy made from the cooking liquid.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Is the main cut that becomes tender during long, slow simmering in liquid.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add savory sweetness that flavours the braising liquid.
Canned tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the cooking liquid, which becomes the base for the gravy.
Butter
Carries heat for browning the onion and beef and adds richness.

The step that matters

Brown the beef on both sides. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction, which only happens on a dry, hot surface. Crowding the pan or leaving the meat wet causes it to steam and turn grey, so the braise tastes flatter.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, beef, tomato):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, beef, tomato. 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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