Why it works: Beef and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 18,971 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the beef
Remove the bones from the beef and reserve them.
Spread the meat flat and cover the inside with bacon slices. Season with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.
Roll and bind the meat tightly, then place it in a stewpan.
Add the reserved bones and enough beef broth to nearly cover the meat. If broth is unavailable, place slices of ham or bacon under the beef and add cold water.
Stew
Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum, then add the herbs, carrots, leeks or onion.
After an hour, add mace and peppercorns.
Stew gently for 4-5 hours, longer if the joint is large.
Adjust salt before adding vegetables, and reduce the cooking liquid to make gravy.
Serve
Serve with Espagnole, sauce piquante, or brown caper sauce.
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.
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Beef + peppertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + carrottop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,310 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Beef + vealtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Beef + carrottop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together6,604 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
- Sirloin of beef
- Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
- Striped bacon
- Adds fat and savory flavor that moistens the lean beef as it cooks.
- Beef broth
- Provides the cooking liquid that flavors the meat and later becomes the gravy.
- Carrots
- Contribute sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.
- Leeks or onion
- Add aromatic depth to the stewing liquid and the final gravy.
The step that matters
Stew gently for 4-5 hours. A gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly and keeps the meat tender and moist. A hard boil toughens muscle fibers and makes the meat dry and stringy.
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, veal, carrot, leek, butter):
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, veal, carrot, leek, butter. 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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