Skip to main content
Main

Breast, Stewed

A slow‑cooked beef breast stew with rice or barley, turnips, onions or leeks, carrots, pepper, salt, and optional dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Breast, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Place the whole breast or cut pieces in a pot with cold water and bring to a gentle boil for 2 to 2.5 hours.

  2. If possible, do this the day before and let the liquid cool completely to allow fat to settle on top.

  3. Remove the fat from the cooled liquid. If short on time, skim the fat off while hot.

Make the stew

  1. Bring the liquid back to a boil, then add rice or barley, turnips, onions or leeks, and carrots.

  2. Boil for 20-30 minutes, then return the meat to the pot with pepper and salt.

  3. Let everything simmer slowly for at least 1 hour, or longer if time allows.

  4. For added flavor, you can add plain or suet dumplings if desired.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef breast
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and the broth rich.
Rice or barley
Starch released during simmering thickens the broth and adds body.
Turnips
Hold their shape during long simmering and add mild sweetness to the broth.
Onions or leeks
Break down while simmering, adding savory depth and sweetness to the broth.
Carrots
Soften during simmering and add natural sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Chilling the cooked liquid to remove fat. Fat solidifies on top as the liquid cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skimming hot liquid leaves more fat dispersed in the broth, which makes the stew greasier.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, turnip, carrot, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, turnip, carrot, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipes