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Elb of Beef Stewed

A beef stew cooked with bacon, onion, carrots, herbs, mace, pepper, salt, water, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Elb of Beef Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the prime rib of beef and place it in a stewpan with 2 slices of bacon at the bottom.

  2. Cover the beef with another slice of bacon.

  3. Add the chopped onion, carrots, sweet basil, thyme, parsley, bruised mace, pepper, and salt.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Stew gently until the beef is very tender, about 20 to 30 minutes per pound.

  2. Remove the beef and place it on a plate, cleaning off excess fat.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid into a clean stewpan, adding 1 cup of water and 1 large teaspoon of flour.

  4. Boil until thickened, then pour the gravy over the beef.

Serve

  1. Serve with spinach, parsnips, or beetroot.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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

Prime rib of beef
Provides the meat that becomes very tender through long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour that seasons the stew and the cooking liquid.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a gravy as it boils.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as it stews.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the beef is very tender. Vigorous boiling toughens meat and makes it stringy. Gentle heat slowly breaks down connective tissue into gelatin, giving tender, moist beef.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, basil, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Oreganofits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, basil, thyme, parsley, pepper. 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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