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Stewed Beef

A hearty stew of lean beef, bacon, spices, herbs, onions, and mushrooms simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Stewed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Line the bottom of a stew pan with thin slices of fat bacon.

  2. Layer slices of lean beef (1 inch thick) on top, seasoning with spices, sweet herbs, onions, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.

  3. Place the fleshy side of the beef downwards and season the upper part as well.

  4. Add more slices of beef and bacon on top.

Stew and serve

  1. Pour broth over the entire mixture, cover the stew pan tightly, and place fire on the cover and underneath.

  2. Once the beef is stewed, remove it and let it drain.

  3. Serve the beef with a ragout made from veal sweetbreads, capon livers, mushrooms, truffles, asparagus tops, and artichoke bottoms, tossed with melted bacon and good gravy.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavourful as it slowly stews.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour that flavours the beef and the melted bacon dressing.
Broth
Provides moisture so the beef gently simmers and stays tender in the covered pan.
Truffles
Adds a rare, earthy aroma to the ragout served with the beef.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and keep the heat gentle. A tight lid traps steam so the broth keeps the beef moist while collagen slowly breaks down. Strong heat would boil the liquid hard and toughen the meat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom, truffle, beef, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom, truffle, beef, 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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