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Slewed Meats

A stew of beef, potatoes, tomatoes, celery, onion, and parsley simmered in water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Slewed Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and trim the edges.

Brown and simmer

  1. Dredge the meat with flour and brown it in fat.

  2. Cover the meat with boiling water or stock.

  3. Move the pot to a low heat to simmer, not boil, for tender 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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

Shoulder beef
Connective tissue in the shoulder breaks down during slow simmering, becoming tender and rich.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Potatoes
Starch thickens the stew slightly as they cook and softens into the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, balancing the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Simmer, do not boil. Boiling tightens the meat's muscle fibres and toughens it, while a gentle simmer lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, giving tender meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, tomato, parsley, celery, 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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