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Brazilian Stew

A hearty beef stew with carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, vinegar, pepper, and sea salt simmered for at least three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Brazilian Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut all the meat off the bone from the beef.

  2. Cut the meat into neat pieces.

  3. Dip each piece of meat into the vinegar in a basin to tenderize it.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut them into slices.

  2. Peel the turnips and onions, then cut them into slices.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place the meat pieces in a saucepan, arranging them closely together.

  2. Sprinkle pepper and coarse sea salt over the meat.

  3. Add all the vegetables and the tied bunch of herbs to the saucepan.

  4. Cover the saucepan tightly.

  5. Simmer gently by the fire for at least three hours.

  6. Serve the stew on a hot dish or in a soup tureen.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin or sticking beef
Tough connective tissue breaks down during long gentle simmering, making the meat tender and rich.
Vinegar
Its acidity helps tenderize the surface of the meat before cooking.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add mild earthy flavour and body to the broth.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding savoury depth to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. Slow, gentle heat over at least three hours is needed to break down the tough connective tissue in shin beef. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat fibres and can make the stew cloudy, while a tight lid keeps moisture in the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, marjoram, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, marjoram, thyme, parsley, 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.

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