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Beef and Macaroni

A stew of beef fillet, onions, and macaroni simmered in water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef 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 ↓

Beef and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and fry them thoroughly in butter.

  2. Lard the fillet of beef and place it in a stewpan with the onions and water or stock.

  3. If using water, add a few vegetables.

Stew and finish

  1. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Add the macaroni and stew gently for another 35 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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + beeftop 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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, adding flavour to the stew broth.
Butter
Fat that carries the frying onions and adds richness.
Fillet of rump beef
Main protein that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Macaroni
Starch that absorbs liquid and thickens the stew as it cooks.
Water or stock
Liquid that cooks the beef gently and forms the body of the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue in the beef break down slowly, producing tender meat. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can make the liquid cloudy and the meat dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef. 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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