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Stewed Steak and Macaroni

A stew of beef and macaroni flavored with ketchup, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Steak and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and roll them in flour.

  2. Fry the beef slightly in a little butter.

Stew

  1. Transfer the beef to a stewpan and cover with hot water.

  2. Simmer slowly for 1½ hours.

  3. Add the macaroni and simmer for another 45 minutes.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and ketchup, then stew for 10 more minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with the beef in the center and the macaroni around it.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Lean beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the beef and thickens the cooking liquid as it stews.
Macaroni
Absorbs cooking liquid and adds starch and body to the stew.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that season the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering the beef slowly. Beef is tough collagen-rich muscle. Keeping it at a gentle simmer for a long time converts collagen to gelatin and tenderises the meat, while a hard boil toughens the fibres and can make the liquid cloudy.

“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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