Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Hungarian Goulash
Ingredients
Directions
Place the beef in an earthenware pot with vegetables, herbs, spices, pepper, and salt.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to barely simmer for four hours.
Remove the meat and cut it into neat pieces about 2 inches square.
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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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 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
- Rump of beef
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful during long, gentle simmering.
The step that matters
Simmer at a barely-there heat for four hours. Keeping the liquid just below a boil lets connective tissue in the beef break down slowly without toughening the meat or drying it out.
“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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