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75 Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew flavored with vinegar, onion, spices, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Capsicum and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

75 Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. In a large saucepan, combine 1 pint of water and ⅔ pint of brown vinegar.

  2. Add the onion, sugar, hot spices, peppercorns, sweet herbs, bay leaves, and capsicums.

Cook the stew

  1. Wash the beef shin thoroughly and dry it with flour.

  2. Place the beef in the pan and bring to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer gently for 5 to 6 hours.

  4. One hour before serving, add the tomatoes, mushrooms, salt, and pepper.

  5. Do not uncover the pan until ready to 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. Capsicum + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

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

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Brown vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps tenderise the meat during long cooking.
Mushrooms
Add savoury depth and moisture to the stew as they soften in the liquid.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, thickening the sauce as they break down.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 5 to 6 hours. A rolling boil toughens meat and can make the liquid cloudy, while a gentle simmer slowly converts collagen into gelatin, giving tender beef and a silky sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, onion, sugar, thyme, capsicum, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, onion, sugar, thyme, capsicum, tomato. 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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