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Beef-steak Stewed with Champagne

A stew of beef steak simmered with champagne, onions, carrots, celery, and bay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef-steak Stewed with Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steak into pieces.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the stew

  1. In a pot, sauté chopped onions, carrots, and celery until soft.

  2. Add the beef and brown on all sides.

  3. Pour in the champagne and add bay leaves.

  4. Cover and simmer until the beef is tender.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef-steak
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender with slow simmering.
Champagne
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid.
Onions
Softened in the pot to build a sweet, savoury base.
Carrots
Soften during sautéing and add sweetness to the stew.
Celery
Softens during sautéing and adds savoury depth to the base.

The step that matters

Browning the beef on all sides. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Beef that is crowded or steamed in the pot turns grey and tastes flat, so brown it in batches if needed before adding liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, champagne, pepper, carrot, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, champagne, pepper, carrot, celery. 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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