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Beef Stewed

A simple beef stew with onions, turnip, carrot, celery simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the beef in a stewpan with 1 quart of water and bring to a boil, skimming off the fat as it boils.

  2. Add the chopped onion, turnip, carrot, and celery.

  3. Stew for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, until the liquid is reduced to less than half.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a dish and the soup in a basin.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat and rich flavour as its juices and fats are drawn into the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it cooks down.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth during long stewing.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture to the stew vegetables.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat as it boils. Fat that is not removed early will melt into the broth and make it greasy. Skimming while the liquid first boils keeps the soup clearer and lighter on the palate.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, celery. 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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