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Spanish Stew

A hearty stew of beef ribs simmered with tomatoes, onions, cloves, sage, orange peel, bay leaves, and chili pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the beef ribs in 2 quarts of water for 2 hours.

  2. Add the tomatoes, chopped onions, cloves, sage, grated orange peel, bay leaves, and chili pepper.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender.

  4. Thicken the stew with flour made smooth in cold water.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Beef ribs
Provide the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the braising liquid, building the stew's flavor base.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften into the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, heavier sauce when smoothed in cold water first.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour made smooth in cold water. Flour added dry clumps in hot liquid. Mixing it smooth in cold water first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the stew thickens without lumps.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, onion, clove, sage, pepper, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, onion, clove, sage, pepper, 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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