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Portugal Beef

A stew of sliced rump beef with chestnuts, anchovy, onion, pepper, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and chestnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Portugal Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat off the bone of the rump and slice it across.

  2. Dust the meat with flour.

  3. Fry the thin part in butter until browned.

  4. Sauté the thick end with suet, chestnuts, anchovy, onion, and pepper.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the meat in a pan of strong broth until tender.

  2. Arrange the fried and stewed meat in a dish, cutting the fried pieces in half.

  3. Strain the stewing gravy and pour it over the meat.

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. Flour + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Chestnut + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when stewed slowly in liquid.
Flour
Dusting helps the meat brown and lightly thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fat that carries heat for frying and adds browning and rich flavour.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the sautéed meat moist and savoury.
Anchovy
Contributes savoury depth that enriches the flavour of the gravy without tasting fishy.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it softens and browns in the fat.

The step that matters

Stew the meat until tender. Rump is a lean, muscular cut with connective tissue that only softens with long, gentle simmering. Boiling hard can toughen the surface and leave the meat stringy, so keep the liquid at a low simmer.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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