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Stewed Rump Another Way

A slow‑cooked beef rump stew with wine, beer, vinegar, catsup, herbs, and optional pickled mushrooms and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Rump Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the beef

  1. Place the half-roasted beef rump in a large pot.

  2. Add 3 pints of water, 1 pint of small beer, 1 pint of port wine, salt, vinegar, catsup, mixed herbs, onions, cloves, and cayenne.

  3. Cover the pot and simmer for 2-3 hours until the beef is tender.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Once done, transfer the beef to a deep dish and keep it warm over hot water.

  2. Skim the gravy and add pickled mushrooms, truffles, morels, and oysters if desired.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then heat it and pour over the beef.

  4. For added flavor, prepare forcemeat-balls and serve alongside.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Tarragon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rump
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour and butter
Thicken the gravy so it clings to the beef.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet and savory flavours of the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.
Small beer
Contributes liquid and mild malty, slightly bitter flavour to the braise.

The step that matters

Keeping the beef tender during the simmer. Simmering gently at a low, steady heat lets collagen in the tough rump break down into gelatin. A hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and leaves the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, beer, port wine, vinegar, tarragon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, beer, port wine, vinegar, tarragon, parsley, thyme. 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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