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Stewed Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew with spices, onions, carrots, celery, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the shin of beef in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Once the broth begins to bubble, skim off any foam.

  3. Add salt, allspice, black pepper, cayenne, cloves, mace, onion, carrots, and celery.

  4. Cover and stew for 4 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the meat, slice it neatly, and place it in a hot deep dish.

  2. Mix the teacup of gravy with the flour.

  3. Skim the broth.

  4. Add the thickening.

  5. Stir the mixture.

  6. Boil for half a minute.

  7. Pour the gravy over the meat.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Slow stewing breaks down connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and rich in body.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid, giving it body and a smooth coating texture.
Gravy
Adds concentrated savory flavor and moisture to the finished dish.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic depth into the broth during long cooking.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the thickening and boil briefly. Flour must be fully mixed into the gravy before it goes into the broth, then boiled, so the starch swells and thickens smoothly. Lumps form if it is added unmixed or the mixture is not stirred.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, allspice, pepper, clove, onion, carrot, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, allspice, pepper, clove, onion, carrot, celery. 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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