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Brown Stew

A beef stew with butter, flour, stock, carrots, onions, herbs, tomatoes, and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brown Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Fry the beef until browned.

  3. Remove the beef.

  4. Fry the carrot and onion until softened.

  5. Add the flour and cook until browned.

  6. Pour in the stock.

  7. Add the herbs and clove.

  8. Stir until boiling.

  9. Return the beef to the pot.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the mushrooms and tomatoes.

  2. Simmer gently for about 2 hours or longer if the meat is tough.

  3. Remove the herbs and clove.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stewing beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Flour
Browned with the vegetables, it thickens the stock into a rich gravy.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, adding brightness to the savoury stew.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the flavour base.
Butter
Carries the frying of the meat and vegetables, adding richness.

The step that matters

Brown the flour. Cooking flour in the fat until browned develops nutty flavour and colour and removes raw starch taste. Stir constantly so it does not scorch, then add the stock gradually to avoid lumps.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, flour, carrot, onion, tomato, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, flour, carrot, onion, tomato, mushroom. 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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