Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Beef Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Pound the piece of rump beef until tender.
Place the beef in an iron vessel lined with slices of pork and onions, and add a few peppercorns and coarse sea salt.
Baste the beef with melted butter and cover tightly.
Cook
Set the vessel over good heat and fry until browned.
Add 1 quart of good soup stock and stew until soft.
Finish and serve
Before serving, remove the meat and skim off the fat.
Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with some broth to make a smooth paste, then gradually add more broth.
Strain the mixture through a sieve and pour it over the meat.
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.
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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rump beef
- Pounding and long stewing soften the tough muscle into tender meat.
- Melted butter
- Coats the meat and helps it brown and carry flavor during frying.
- Soup stock
- Provides the liquid in which the beef stews and becomes the base of the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
The step that matters
Frying until browned. Browning the meat over good heat creates flavorful compounds through the Maillard reaction. Crowding or insufficient heat leaves the meat grey and steaming, which yields a blander stew.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, butter, flour):
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
- Chivefits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, butter, 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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