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Beef and Macaroni.

A slow‑cooked beef stew with macaroni, cheese, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef and Macaroni.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Rub the beef with garlic, pepper, salt, and allspice to form a paste.

  2. Skewer and tie the beef, then place it in a covered pot with 3 pints of water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Simmer the beef slowly for 6 hours before dinner.

  2. Pour off most of the gravy 45 minutes before serving.

  3. Add macaroni to the gravy and shake the pot occasionally.

  4. About 10 minutes before serving, add grated cheese to the macaroni.

  5. Cook potatoes in the saucepan with the beef for 20 minutes before serving.

  6. Serve the macaroni and gravy together, and the beef garnished with 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shoulder
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Macaroni
Absorbs the gravy as it cooks, thickening the dish and adding starchy body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the macaroni, adding richness and a savory, binding creaminess.
Potatoes
Cook in the simmering liquid and hold their shape, adding starch and substance.

The step that matters

Simmering the beef slowly for 6 hours. Low, gentle heat lets tough collagen in the shoulder convert to gelatin, making the meat tender and moist. Rapid boiling toughens muscle fibres and dries the meat.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, garlic, pepper, allspice, cheese, potato):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, garlic, pepper, allspice, cheese, potato. 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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