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Swedish Stew

A hearty stew of beef, turnips, carrots, onions, and tomatoes seasoned with salt, paprika, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Swedish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into 1½‑inch cubes.

  2. Slice the carrot and turnip, and quarter the onions.

  3. Stew the tomatoes, then strain them.

Assemble

  1. Layer the meat, carrot, turnip, and onions in an earthenware casserole or bean pot.

  2. Sprinkle in the tapioca and season with salt and paprika.

  3. Measure the strained tomatoes and add them along with the vinegar.

  4. Cover the pot and seal it with a thick paste made of flour and water.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook for about 3 hours.

  2. Serve with baked potatoes.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 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
Provides the main substance, and slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue into tender meat.
Tapioca
Thickens the cooking liquid as it gelatinizes during the long stew.
Tomato
Adds acidity and savory body to the stewing liquid.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich, slow-cooked sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the stew.

The step that matters

Seal the pot tightly before cooking. The flour and water paste keeps steam inside the casserole, so the stew cooks gently in its own moisture. A poor seal lets liquid escape, which can leave the beef dry and the sauce too thick or scorched.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, onion, vinegar):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, onion, vinegar. 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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