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Beef, Ragout of

A beef ragout with pasta, simmered with onion, carrot, stock, and served with pickled walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef, Ragout of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into 1.5-inch square pieces and roll in seasoned flour.

  2. Fry the beef in dripping or butter until browned, then remove to a plate.

Make the ragout

  1. Slice the onion and carrot, fry them, and stir in the flour until nut brown.

  2. Stir the thickening into the stock, boil, then add the meat and simmer for 1 hour.

Cook the pasta and serve

  1. Break the spaghetti or macaroni into pieces and boil in salted water for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the pasta and make a border on a hot dish, pouring the ragout into the center.

  3. Garnish with pickled walnuts cut into quarters.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Top side of round beef
Becomes tender during the long simmer while browning adds savory flavor.
Dripping or butter
Fat that browns the beef and carries flavor into the dish.
Flour
Browned in the fat and stirred into the stock to thicken the sauce.
Stock
Liquid base that cooks the meat and forms the body of the sauce.
Spaghetti or macaroni
Starch that forms a border around the ragout on the serving dish.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until nut brown. Flour cooked in fat until nut brown gives the sauce a deeper color and toasted flavor, while undercooked flour tastes raw and thickens less smoothly. Stir steadily so it does not scorch.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, flour. 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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