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Stewed Beetroots in Sauce

A dish of beetroot cooked in a sauce of vinegar, stock, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,682 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Beetroots in Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beetroot

  1. Bake the beetroots in a 400°F (200°C) oven until tender.

  2. Remove the skin from the cooled beetroots.

  3. Slice the beetroots.

Stew

  1. Combine the sliced beetroots with a little vinegar and stock or gravy in a stewpan.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  4. Pour off the gravy.

  5. Reduce the gravy to a glaze.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a few slices of beetroot.

  2. Mash the beetroot slices in a mortar.

  3. Add the brown sauce.

  4. Boil for a few minutes.

  5. Mix the boiled mixture with the sliced beetroot.

  6. Heat carefully.

  7. Garnish with fried bread croutons.

  8. Serve.

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. Beetroot + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,682 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beetroot + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beetroot + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vinegar + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,844 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroots
Provide the main body, colour and earthy sweetness of the dish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet earthiness of the beetroot.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and darker colour to the finished mixture.

The step that matters

Reduce the gravy to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the stock and its flavour as water evaporates. If it is cut short the sauce stays thin, and if it goes too far it turns sticky and salty.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, sauce. 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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