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A Beef Stew

A hearty stew of beef simmered with broth, lemon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A Beef Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat and skin from the beef and cut it into 2 to 3-inch pieces.

  2. Place the beef in a stewpan and add 1 quart of broth.

Simmer and flavor

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Finely shred the lemon and add it to the gravy.

  3. After 20 minutes, mix in Harvey’s sauce, lemon juice, flour, and ketchup.

  4. Add Madeira, sherry, or port 15 minutes after the flavoring, then serve.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Madeira, sherry, or port
Adds wine-based sweetness and depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the boil. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the pieces, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue slowly soften into tender meat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, sauce, flour, ketchup, sherry):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, sauce, flour, ketchup, sherry. 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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