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Beef Stewed with Carrots

A simple beef stew with carrots, browned in butter and simmered with flour and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Stewed with Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the beef and brown it slightly.

Stew and serve

  1. Stir in the sliced carrots and flour, mixing well.

  2. Add salt and stock if necessary to cover the ingredients.

  3. Cover and let it stew until the beef is tender.

  4. Serve the carrots over the beef.

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 + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Butter
Carries flavour and helps the beef brown in the pot.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes richer.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften.

The step that matters

Browning the beef. Searing the beef in hot fat creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Browning only slightly leaves a flatter taste, so the surface should colour before stock is added.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter. 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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