Skip to main content
Main

Beef Stew with Dumplings

A hearty beef stew thickened with dumplings made from flour, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Stew with Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Combine the beef and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the onions, carrot, and turnip.

  4. Simmer until the beef is tender.

Make and add the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, eggs, and salt.

  2. Add enough water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling dough into the stew.

  4. Do this half an hour before serving.

  5. Cook until the dumplings are fluffy and cooked through.

  6. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef
Becomes tender through slow simmering, giving the stew its main body and savory flavor.
All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff dough that gives the dumplings their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the dumplings rise and turn fluffy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dumpling dough, helping it hold together while cooking.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Drop the dumplings into a gently simmering stew. Dumplings need to steam at a gentle simmer with the lid on so the batter sets and rises; a hard boil can break them apart or make them dense, and they must cook through before serving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, flour, egg, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, flour, egg, 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes