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Exeter Stew

A hearty beef stew with gravy and savory balls, simmered slowly with onions, vinegar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Exeter Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Remove all fat from the meat and cut it into 8 to 10 pieces.

  2. Place the meat in a stewing jar with the vinegar.

  3. Put the jar in a cool oven.

  4. Heat the dripping in a frying pan.

  5. Fry the sliced onions and flour until brown.

  6. Add the water to the pan, bring to a boil, and pour it over the meat in the jar.

  7. Season the stew, cover closely, and cook gently in the oven or on the stove for 3 hours.

Make the savoury balls and serve

  1. Mix the ingredients for the savoury balls, adding water to bind into a stiff mixture, and form into 12 balls.

  2. About 40 minutes before serving, bring the stew to a boil.

  3. Drop the balls into the stew and simmer for 40 minutes.

  4. To serve, pile the meat in the center of a hot dish, strain the gravy over, and arrange the balls around the base.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Lean beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long gentle cooking.
Flour
Fried with the onions and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Onions
Fried until brown to add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Suet
Adds fat to the savoury balls, keeping them moist and tender as they simmer.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the savoury balls rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Simmering the savoury balls. The balls must be stiff enough to hold their shape in the simmering stew. Too much water makes them break apart, while a gentle simmer cooks them through without toughening the dumpling dough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, vinegar, pepper, parsley. 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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