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Spanish Stew

A stew of cold cooked meat, onion, chile pepper, tomatoes, thickened with flour or cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the beef dripping in a skillet.

  2. Add the cut fine meat and fry for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in the chopped onion, chile, and tomatoes.

  4. Cover and simmer for twenty minutes.

  5. Just before removing from heat, add a little flour or cornstarch to thicken.

  6. Cook for two to three more minutes and serve hot.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

Cold cooked meat
Provides the main body of the stew and savory meaty flavor as it fries.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that help form the stew's liquid base.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, heavier sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour or cornstarch. Starch needs heat and some time to swell and thicken the liquid. Adding it just before removing from heat, then cooking briefly, lets it gelatinize fully. Stirring it in evenly first prevents lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, pepper, tomato, 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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