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Baked Beef Stew

A baked stew of beef, carrot, onion, peas, seasoned with vinegar, cloves, nutmeg, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Beef Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Slice the carrot and onion.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the beef, carrot, onion, and peas.

  2. Sprinkle tapioca, bread crumbs, vinegar, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and pepper over the layers.

  3. Cover the ingredients with cold water.

  4. Cover the dish tightly and bake for 2.5 to 3 hours.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Leg beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow baking.
Minute tapioca
Thickens the cooking liquid as it heats, giving the stew body.
Bread crumbs
Help soak up and thicken the juices as the stew bakes.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly and bake for 2.5 to 3 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the beef cooks in moist heat and slowly breaks down its connective tissue. Lifting the cover or baking too hot can dry the meat and leave it tough.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, bread, vinegar, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, bread, vinegar, clove, nutmeg. 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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