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Stewed Beet Root

A stew of beet root cooked in veal gravy, thickened with arrowroot and finished with cream and 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 beet root

  1. Bake or boil the beet root until tender, then let it cool.

  2. Pare and slice the beet root.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the slices in good pale veal gravy or strong veal broth.

  2. Thicken the gravy with 1 teaspoon of arrowroot and stir in ½ cup of good cream.

  3. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of 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. Cream + arrowroottop 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. Arrowroot + vealtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together171 recipes

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

  5. Cream + vealtop 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
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes soft and tender when baked or boiled.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce that clings to the beet slices.
Good cream
Adds richness and a silky texture that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Chili vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and heat that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.
Veal gravy or veal broth
Provides the savoury meaty base that the sauce is built on.

The step that matters

Add the chili vinegar just before serving. Vinegar is acidic and added late keeps its sharp, bright flavour fresh. Heating it for long can mute its aroma and can cause a cream-based sauce to curdle or turn thin.

Swap the arrowroot

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

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

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