Name: Beef Stewed with Raisins
Ingredients: 2 pounds beef; ½ cup beef broth; ½ pound raisins; 4 ounces butter; ¼ cup browned flour; ¼ pound sweet almonds, chopped

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Stewed with Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the beef in the beef broth until tender.
Cut the meat into pieces.
Add the raisins, butter, browned flour, and chopped almonds.
Allow the mixture to stew for a while until heated through.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Provides the main body and protein of the stew, becoming tender when simmered.
Raisins: Add sweetness and soft, moist chewiness to the stew.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the stew a smoother mouthfeel.
Browned flour: Thickens the stewing liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Sweet almonds: Contribute crunch and a mild nutty flavor against the soft meat and raisins.

“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.