Name: Beef, Stewed, and Mushrooms
Ingredients: 2 onions, sliced; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 2 tablespoons ketchup; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; cold beef, thinly sliced; 1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef, Stewed, and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the sliced onions in butter until cooked.
Add flour and ketchup, season with pepper and salt, and cook for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle the cold beef with flour and fry it with the onions and mushrooms.
Season to taste and serve hot.

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.

Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions: Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base flavour of the stew.
Butter: Fat that fries the onions and carries flavour through the dish.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid and helps coat the beef as it browns.
Ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity, deepening the savoury flavour of the sauce.
Cold beef: Main protein, browned in the pan to add savoury flavour.
Mushrooms: Release moisture and savoury flavour as they cook with the onions and beef.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Chivefits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ketchup, pepper, beef, mushroom. 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.