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Brown Beef Stew

A hearty stew of beef cubes simmered with stock, onions, carrots, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brown Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the beef

  1. Roll the beef cubes in flour.

  2. Melt the suet in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Remove the cracklings and add the beef, shaking until slightly browned.

Make the stew

  1. Move the meat to one side, add 2 tablespoons of flour to the fat, and stir until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the stock, salt, onion, bay leaf, carrot, pepper, and kitchen bouquet.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Without removing the cover, transfer to a Caloric kettle and cook for 3 hours using one radiator.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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
Provides the meaty body of the stew, and browning it adds deeper flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Suet
Adds fat for browning the beef and carries flavor through the stew.
Stock
Supplies the main liquid that moistens the meat and dissolves flavors.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aroma to the sauce.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring flour into the fat until smooth. Flour cooked in fat forms a roux that thickens the liquid evenly. Adding stock gradually while stirring helps prevent lumps from forming in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, carrot, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, carrot, 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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