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Stewed Roast Beef

A stew of roast beef, onions, butter, breadcrumbs, stock, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Stewed Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Roast the beef over an open fire until half done, basting with butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the onion juice, breadcrumbs, and butter to form a smooth paste.

  2. Season the paste with pepper and salt.

  3. Place the mixture in a stewpan and stir in enough strong stock to create a thick sauce.

  4. Simmer the sauce for five minutes, then add the sliced beef.

  5. Cover and simmer until the beef is thoroughly cooked.

  6. Strain the sauce.

  7. Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the beef slices arranged on a dish.

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 meat that is roasted, then simmered until fully cooked in the sauce.
Onions
Their juice gives moisture and a savoury, slightly sweet flavour to the paste and sauce.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the onion and butter mixture into a smooth paste.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce on heating and give it a richer, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, so if the sauce boils after they are added it can curdle or turn grainy. Add them off the heat or over gentle heat, stirring constantly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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