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A LA Mode Stew

A stew of beef, radishes, carrots, onions, potatoes, green chilies, ginger, and flour, simmered in ghee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,377 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into squares or slices.

  2. Fry the beef in ghee until browned.

  3. Season the beef with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Remove the beef and set aside.

Brown the vegetables

  1. Add the potatoes and onions cut in halves, along with the carrots and radishes cut halfway down the middle.

  2. Brown the vegetables.

  3. Set the vegetables aside with the meat.

Make the gravy and simmer

  1. Brown the minced onion and 2 teaspoons of flour.

  2. Add a little warm water to create a gravy. Stir for a few minutes.

  3. Return the fried meat and vegetables to the pot.

  4. Let the stew simmer until the meat is tender. Keep the lid closed, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,377 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,105 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 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
Browning and simmering until tender gives the meat its savory flavor and soft texture.
Flour
Browned with the onion, it thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Potatoes
Starchy body that softens during simmering and helps thicken the stew.
Onions
Browning softens and sweetens them, adding depth to the stew base.
Carrots
Hold their shape while simmering and add natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Brown the onion and flour before adding water. Cooking flour in fat until golden removes its raw taste and lets it thicken the gravy smoothly rather than leaving lumps or a pasty flavor.

Flavor stand-ins for the radish

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, potato, ginger, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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