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Braised Beef

A slow-cooked beef dish simmered in tomato gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place the beef in a pot and add enough water to half cover it.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 hours until the beef is thoroughly tender.

  3. Remove the beef to a hot platter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Season the gravy in the pot with salt and pepper.

  2. Strain in the stewed tomato and stir well.

  3. Bring to a boil once, then add the butter and pour 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Provides the main meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Stewed tomato
Adds acidity and body to the cooking liquid, flavouring the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the finished gravy, giving it a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 3 hours. Long, gentle heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in round beef into gelatin. A hard boil toughens and dries the meat, so the liquid should only simmer.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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