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Portugal Beef

A stuffed rump of beef simmered in broth with chestnuts, anchovy, onion, pepper, and pickled gherkins, finished with burnt butter gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Portugal Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  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. Stuff the thick end with suet, broiled chestnuts, anchovy, onion, and pepper.

  5. Stew the stuffed beef in strong broth until tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Place the fried and stewed beef together on a dish.

  2. Cut the fried beef in half and arrange it on each side of the stewed beef.

  3. Strain the stewing gravy, add chopped pickled gherkins and broiled chestnuts.

  4. Thicken the gravy with burnt butter and boil it two or three times.

  5. Season the gravy with salt and pour it over the beef.

  6. Garnish with lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat, which is browned in part and stewed in part for contrasting textures.
Flour
Dusted on the meat to help it brown and to give the surface a light coating.
Butter
Fat used for frying the thin beef, adding browning and rich flavour.
Suet
Hard animal fat in the stuffing that adds richness and moisture to the thick end.
Broiled chestnuts
Starchy filling that adds body and a soft, mild sweetness to the stuffing and gravy.
Burnt butter
Browned butter that thickens the gravy and adds a nutty, toasted aroma.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with burnt butter and boil it two or three times. Burnt butter must be cooked to the right brown so it adds nutty flavour without bitterness, and the gravy needs to be brought to a boil to thicken and cook out raw taste.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

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