Name: Beef, Oatmeal and Tomato
Ingredients: 1 pound shin of beef, cut into small pieces; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; 2 sausages, cut into 1-inch pieces; ¼ cup all-purpose flour, for rolling sausages; 1 cup canned tomato; ⅓ cup oatmeal; 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef, Oatmeal and Tomato

Ingredients

1 pound shin of beef, cut into small pieces
Coarse sea salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
2 sausages, cut into 1-inch pieces
¼ cup all-purpose flour, for rolling sausages
1 cup canned tomato
⅓ cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Prepare

Season the beef pieces with salt and pepper.
Roll the sausage pieces in flour and place them in an earthen dish.
Add the canned tomato, oatmeal, and Worcestershire sauce to the dish.

Cook

Cook in an Aladdin Pail for five hours.

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.

Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef: Provides the main meat and, with slow cooking, becomes tender in the stew.
Sausages: Add savory, fatty flavor to the stew as they cook down.
All-purpose flour: Coats the sausage pieces, helping them brown and slightly thicken the stew.
Canned tomato: Adds acidity and liquid, giving the stew its body and tangy flavor.
Oatmeal: Absorbs liquid and thickens the stew as it cooks.

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Horseradishfits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, sauce. 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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Beef, Oatmeal and Tomato