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Beef Gobbets

A beef stew with lemon peel, nutmeg, parsley, shallot, garlic, vinegar, port wine, and a bread topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Gobbets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Season the beef bits with salt, pepper, lemon peel, nutmeg, parsley, shallot, and garlic.

Cook

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the beef until browned.

  2. Add a rich brown gravy and stew until tender.

  3. Stir in vinegar and port wine.

Finish and brown

  1. Top with grated bread and a little butter, then brown under a salamander.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow stewing.
Butter
Fat that browns the beef and adds richness to the finished dish.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, browned topping when heated under a salamander.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour of the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewed sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the beef in butter. Fry the beef until well browned before adding gravy. Browning creates deep savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, and crowding the pan or skipping this step leaves the beef grey and tasting flat.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley, shallot, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley, shallot, clove. 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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