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Beef Goulash

A hearty stew of diced beef, salt pork, vegetables, and tomatoes simmered slowly with bay leaf and green pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Goulash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pan until crisp.

  2. Roll the diced steak in flour and fry it in the salt pork fat.

  3. Transfer the steak to a kettle and cover with boiling water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the bay leaf and sliced green peppers.

  2. Boil slowly for 2½ hours.

  3. One hour before serving, add the chopped onions, carrots, and tomatoes.

  4. If needed, add a little thickening.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Round steak
Browned in flour and slow-simmered, the meat becomes tender and gives the stew its body.
Salt pork
Frying it renders fat for browning the steak and adds savory, smoky flavor throughout.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and soften during the long simmer, adding body to the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that blends into a richer, more rounded sauce.
Green peppers
Soften during simmering and contribute a fresh, slightly bitter vegetal flavor.

The step that matters

Rolling the steak in flour and frying it in salt pork fat. Flour-dredged meat browns through the Maillard reaction, creating deep flavor and a light coating that helps thicken the sauce. Crowding the pan or skipping the browning leaves the stew pale and flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, pepper, carrot, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, pepper, carrot, tomato. 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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