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Meat and Poultry

A stew of browned meat, forcemeat balls, truffles, morels, and beef gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Meat and Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the meat until browned.

  2. Place the browned meat in a stew pan with forcemeat balls, truffles, and morels.

  3. Pour in ½ to ¾ pint of beef gravy.

  4. Simmer until finished.

  5. Add a little mushroom ketchup or lemon pickle 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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

  4. Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

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

  5. Truffle + beeftop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Browning the cut surfaces builds savoury flavour, and slow simmering softens tough connective tissue into tender meat.
Forcemeat balls
They add a rich, savoury, soft texture that thickens the stew's body as they cook.
Truffles
They contribute a strong, earthy aroma that carries through the gravy.
Morels
They add a meaty, earthy flavour and a chewy texture to the stew.
Beef gravy
It supplies the cooking liquid, providing moisture and a beefy base flavour for the stew.

The step that matters

Browning the meat. Frying until browned triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deep savoury flavour that the simmering liquid cannot add later. Meat that is crowded or wet will steam instead of browning, so it is worth doing in batches with dry surfaces.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, truffle, beef, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, truffle, beef, mushroom, ketchup. 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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