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Rump of Beef Stewed

A stew made by braising a trimmed rump of beef with onions, celery, leek, carrots, herbs, spices, and broth.

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 ↓

Rump of Beef Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bind the trimmed rump of beef with strong string.

  2. Place the beef in a large braising kettle with any meat trimmings, onions, celery, leeks, carrots, sweet herbs, mace, cloves, and whole pepper.

  3. Add enough broth to cover the meat and close the kettle.

Braise

  1. Bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat to a small slow fire.

  3. Place lighted charcoal on top.

  4. Check the beef after about 4 hours; it should be perfectly tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, remove the beef, trim it, and cut away the string.

  2. Glaze the beef and place it in a screen to dry.

  3. Before serving, glaze the beef again and serve with a rich Espagnole sauce.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow braising.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the braising liquid.
Leek
Adds a mild onion flavor that deepens the broth over the long cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat low during braising. Gentle, slow heat lets the tough connective tissue in the rump break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard toughens and dries the meat fibers, so the fire must stay small and slow.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, celery, leek, carrot, thyme, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, celery, leek, carrot, thyme, parsley. 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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