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Scotch Stew

A slow-cooked beef stew with onions, salt, pepper, water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all fat and skin from the beef and grind it.

  2. In a deep pot, combine the ground beef, chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add 1 cup of boiling water, cover, and simmer slowly for 3 hours.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main body of the stew and its savory meaty flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens during the long simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the lid on. A long, gentle simmer lets the tough connective tissue in the beef break down, making it tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and dry out the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter. 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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