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Australian Meat Stew

The meat is already cooked and must only be warmed through.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Australian Meat Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Stew the onions in 1½ tablespoons of butter or dripping until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Cut the meat across the grain into slices, about ½ inch thick.

  3. Divide the onions into two parts.

  4. Place one part at the bottom of a clean frying pan.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  6. Add the slices of meat on top of the onions and drizzle with ketchup or Worcestershire sauce if using.

  7. Cover the meat with the remaining onions.

  8. Cover the frying pan with a lid and warm the meat in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

  9. Add 2 tablespoons of stock or water if necessary to prevent the stew from being too strong.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, pepper, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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