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Stewed Beet Root

A dish of beet root stewed in veal gravy, thickened with arrowroot and cream, finished with chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Beet Root

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beets

  1. Bake or boil the beet root until tender.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Pare and slice the beet root.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Heat the beet slices in the veal gravy or broth for a short time.

  2. Thicken the gravy with arrowroot and cream.

  3. Stir in chili vinegar just 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. Arrowroot + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Arrowroot + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Veal + arrowroottop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beet root
Provides the main body, earthy flavor and color of the dish.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce without making it cloudy.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the thickened sauce.
Chili vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and heat that brightens the rich sauce and sweet beets.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with arrowroot and cream. Arrowroot thickens best when it is mixed with a little cold liquid first and added to warm gravy while stirring, otherwise it clumps. Cream should be added gently and not allowed to boil hard, since boiling can cause it to separate and make the sauce grainy.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, vinegar):

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, vinegar. 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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