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Italian Stew

A slow‑cooked stew of salt pork, beef, onions, tomatoes, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Italian Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the slice of salt pork until rendered.

  2. Brown the beef pieces in the fat from the pork.

Stew

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the browned meat, onions, tomatoes, herbs, parsley, and salt.

  2. Cover the saucepan tightly and stew on low heat for 4 to 5 hours until the vegetables melt and the meat is tender.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 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

Beef
Slow stewing breaks down connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and moist.
Onions
Soften during the long stew and break down into the sauce, adding sweetness and body.
Tomatoes
Break down into the liquid, providing acidity and a fuller flavor to the stew.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat carries flavor into the browned beef.

The step that matters

Covered low-heat stew. Stewing tightly covered on low heat keeps moisture in and lets collagen in the beef slowly convert to gelatin, which tenderizes the meat. Rushing with high heat toughens the muscle fibers and can dry out the pot, so the meat stays chewy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, onion, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, onion, tomato. 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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