Name: Stewed Beef Steaks
Ingredients: 7 lbs beef steaks; butter; potatoes; curried rice; oysters or shrimp sauce; pickles; pudding; parsley; potato balls

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the beef steaks in butter until cooked through.
Serve with curried rice and boiled potatoes.
Prepare oysters or shrimp sauce to accompany the dish.
Add pickles and pudding as side dishes.
Garnish with parsley and serve potato balls on the side.

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.

Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks: Provide the main protein, which browns in butter and cooks through to become tender.
Butter: Browns the beef steaks, adding richness and savory flavor to the surface.
Potatoes: Serve boiled alongside the beef as a starchy side dish.

Swap the parsley

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

Parsleythe original
Celeryfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Pepperfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, potato, rice, oyster. 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.