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Brazilian Stew

A slow-cooked beef stew with carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Brazilian Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut all the meat off the bone from the beef and cut the meat into neat pieces.

  2. Dip each piece of meat into vinegar to tenderize it.

  3. Wash, scrape, and slice the carrots.

  4. Peel and slice the turnips and onions.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the meat in a saucepan, arranging it closely together, and sprinkle pepper and coarse sea salt over the meat.

  2. Add all the vegetables and the bunch of herbs.

  3. Cover the saucepan tightly and simmer gently for at least three hours.

  4. Serve the stew on a hot dish or in a soup tureen.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef shin or chuck
Connective tissue breaks down during long simmering, giving tender, rich meat.
Vinegar
Acid is applied to the meat surface to help tenderize it before cooking.
Onions
Softens during simmering, adding sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and body into the stew as they cook.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add mild sweetness and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the pan covered. A gentle, covered simmer over at least three hours lets collagen in the tough cut slowly break down into gelatin. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and can make it dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, marjoram, thyme, parsley, 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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