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Brown Stew

A beef stew with butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, vinegar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Brown Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into pieces for serving.

  2. Pour vinegar over the meat and let it marinate for at least 1 hour, turning occasionally.

  3. Drain and dry the meat well.

  4. Cut some carrot into julienne strips and set aside.

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat butter or fat in a stewpan and fry the meat until lightly browned.

  2. Remove the meat and add onion, remaining carrot, and turnip to the pan.

  3. Fry until browned, then sprinkle in flour and stir until nicely browned.

  4. Add water and bring to a boil, stirring.

  5. Simmer gently for 15 minutes, then cool slightly and return the meat to the pan.

  6. Season to taste and cook slowly for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Arrange the meat on a hot dish, strain the sauce over it, and garnish with previously cooked shredded vegetables.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 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

Neck of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long slow cooking.
Flour
Browned with the fat and vegetables to help thicken the sauce.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that helps tenderise the meat before cooking.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Butter or fat
Carries the frying, helping the meat and vegetables brown.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until nicely browned. Browning the flour in the fat builds colour and a toasted flavour in the sauce. Stir constantly so it colours evenly and does not scorch, since scorched flour turns bitter.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, onion, turnip, vinegar, pepper. 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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