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Beef Stew

A hearty stew of beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, and tomatoes simmered in water with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Wash the beef in water with a little vinegar and salt, then cut into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Place the beef in a large pot with 10 gallons of water and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Slice the potatoes and onions into quarters, and chop the carrots.

  3. Add the potatoes, carrots, and onions to the pot and boil until the vegetables are tender.

  4. Stir in the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 20 minutes.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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
Provides the main protein; long simmering breaks down its connective tissue so it becomes tender.
Potatoes
Absorb the cooking liquid and thicken the broth as their starch releases during boiling.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth, balancing the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Boiling the vegetables until tender. Adding the vegetables too early or cooking them unevenly can leave some pieces hard while others turn mushy. Cut pieces to a similar size and check for tenderness before moving on.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, carrot, tomato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Okrafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, carrot, tomato, pepper. 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.

More beef stew recipes

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