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Brown Stew

A beef stew simmered slowly with cayenne, black pepper, sea salt, butter, flour, lard, onion, marjoram, thyme, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Brown Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beef or cold meat into pieces and season with cayenne, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  2. Dredge a little flour over the meat.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, heat the lard and stir in 1 tablespoon of flour until it browns.

  2. Add the seasoned meat, chopped onion, marjoram, and thyme to the saucepan.

  3. Set the saucepan in one corner of the stove and let it stew slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Add a little boiling water and let it cook for 5 hours.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned with the lard, it forms a roux that thickens the stew and adds nutty flavour.
Beef or cold meat
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the seasoned meat.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the stew.
Lard
Fat for browning the flour and building a deep, savoury base.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the lard. Flour must brown slowly in the hot fat until deep golden; underbrowned flour leaves a raw, pasty taste, while scorched flour turns bitter and dark. This roux sets the colour and flavour of the whole stew.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, flour, marjoram, thyme. 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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