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Breast, Stewed

A hearty stew of beef breast with rice or barley, turnips, onions or leeks, carrots, and optional dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Breast, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the meat in a pot with cold water.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil for 2 to 2.5 hours.

  3. Let the broth cool overnight to allow fat to rise and solidify on top.

  4. Skim off the fat from the top of the cooled broth.

Make the stew

  1. Bring the broth back to a boil.

  2. Add rice or barley, turnips, onions or leeks, and carrots.

  3. Boil the mixture for 20 to 30 minutes.

  4. Return the meat to the pot.

  5. Add pepper and salt.

  6. Let it simmer for at least 1 hour.

  7. Cook the meat for a total of 3 to 4 hours.

  8. If desired, add dumplings.

  9. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat (breast)
Provides rich flavor and gelatin-rich body to the broth as it cooks slowly.
Rice or barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during boiling, giving the stew body.
Turnips
Hold their shape during long boiling and add mild sweetness to the broth.
Onions or leeks
Build savory aroma and sweetness as they soften in the simmering broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the stew as they soften.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Chilling lets fat rise and solidify on top of the broth, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this leaves greasy, heavy stew once the vegetables are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, turnip, carrot, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, turnip, carrot, 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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