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Stewed Roast Beef

A stew made from diced cold roast beef simmered with butter, stock, ketchup, onion, green chili, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Cut the cold roast beef into small square dice.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the diced beef and stir constantly until lightly browned.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the stock, tomato ketchup, sliced onion, minced green chili, and pepper, mix well, cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with a border of boiled rice.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Cold roast beef
Provides the main protein, which softens as it simmers in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the diced beef brown lightly at the start.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, giving the stew its tangy, savoury flavour.
Stock
Supplies liquid so the beef stews gently and the sauce stays moist.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the diced beef. Stirring constantly until only lightly browned builds savoury flavour without drying or toughening the meat before the liquid is added.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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