Why it works: Meat and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Meat Stews
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Line a bowl with a little more than half the paste, leaving an inch from the top.
Cut the meat into bits half an inch long and roll them in flour.
Moisten the meat with ½ cup of weak gravy.
Add sliced onion if desired.
Assemble and steam
Put the meat mixture into the bowl and cover with the remaining paste.
If steam might escape, place a folded napkin over the top before adding the plate.
Steam the bowl, covering it tightly with an inverted plate or pie-pan.
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.
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Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together32,460 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,529 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Forms the main body of the stew and releases flavour as it cooks in steam.
- Flour
- Coats the meat and helps thicken the juices as they form during cooking.
- Weak gravy
- Moistens the meat and supplies the liquid that keeps it tender while steaming.
- Paste
- Encloses the filling, holding steam in around the meat as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cover the bowl tightly before steaming. Trapped steam keeps the meat moist and cooking in its own juices. If steam escapes, the meat can dry out, which is why the napkin is placed under the plate when escape is likely.
Swap the onion
The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour):
- Shallotfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Okrafits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour. 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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