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Beef, Stewed Shin of

A slow‑cooked stew of beef shin with celery, onion, carrots, turnips, and mushroom ketchup, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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, Stewed Shin of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the shin of beef into 4 or 5 pieces.

  2. Cover the pieces with hot water and bring the water to a boil.

  3. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

Simmer

  1. Add the celery, onion, herbs, allspice, and seasoning.

  2. Simmer gently until the meat is tender.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the vegetables.

  2. Cut the vegetables into desired shapes.

  3. Boil the vegetables with the button onions until tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Lift out the beef and place it on a dish to keep hot.

  2. Thicken the cooking liquid with butter and flour for gravy.

  3. Stir the gravy until smooth.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Slow simmering breaks down tough connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy, while butter adds richness and gloss.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, umami depth to the broth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Remove the scum from the surface. Scum rising as the water heats contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or muddy flavours.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, onion, pepper, carrot, turnip, butter. 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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