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Spanish Beef

A sautéed beef dish with tomatoes, onions, butter, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt and brown the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the sliced onion and cook until delicately browned.

  3. Stir in the flour and brown it while stirring continuously.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped meat, stock, and tomatoes.

  2. Cook until thoroughly heated, then season and serve.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Butter
Browns in the pan and adds richness and a nutty flavour to the base.
Flour
Browned in the butter, it thickens the stock and tomatoes into a sauce.
Onion
Softens and browns, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, moisture and body to the sauce.
Cooked meat
Provides the main protein, heated through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour as it browns. Flour can scorch on the bottom of the pan before it turns golden. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the flour browns for flavour without burning and turning bitter.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, pepper, onion. 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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