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To Stew Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew with carrots, celery, onions, herbs, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Stew Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the beef in a pot and cover it with cold water, then cover the pot tightly.

  2. Boil for 3-4 hours, depending on the size of the beef.

  3. Add diced carrots, chopped celery, sweet herbs, peppercorns, mace, and onions stuck with cloves.

  4. Simmer for 2-3 hours, skimming off any grease that forms on top.

Finish the gravy

  1. Once the meat is tender, remove the onions, mince them, and fry in butter.

  2. Mix the fried onions into the gravy from the meat, seasoning with salt and cayenne or chili-vinegar.

  3. Add mushroom or walnut ketchup and thicken the gravy with flour.

  4. If desired, brown the gravy with curry powder and add a boiled garlic clove for flavor.

  5. Garnish with vegetables before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavors the gravy during long gentle cooking.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the gravy once fried in butter.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during simmering.
Celery
Adds savory aroma and a subtle vegetable flavor to the stew base.
Mushroom or walnut ketchup
Adds concentrated savory depth and umami to the gravy.

The step that matters

Skimming grease during simmering. Fat that rises to the surface can make the gravy greasy and heavy. Skimming it off as it forms keeps the gravy clean-tasting and less oily.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, carrot, celery, mace, onion, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, carrot, celery, mace, onion, butter. 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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