Skip to main content
Main

At Dinner

A tender beef simmered in a tomato sauce thickened with arrowroot or cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

At Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Boil the beef gently in well-salted water until very tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, cook the tomatoes and strain out the seeds.

  2. Add butter, salt, pepper, and sugar to the tomatoes.

  3. Mix arrowroot or cornstarch with a little water and add to the tomato mixture.

  4. Boil until the sauce is thick and smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef on a hot platter and pour the sauce over it.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + arrowroottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + arrowroottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long gentle boiling.
Tomatoes
Supply the base of the sauce, adding acidity and body once cooked down.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich, smooth mouthfeel to the tomato sauce.
Arrowroot or cornstarch
Thickens the sauce by gelatinizing in the hot liquid, giving a smooth texture.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until thick and smooth. Starch thickens only when it is fully heated in liquid and then stirred smooth. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce, while lumps form if the starch was not well mixed with water first.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes