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To Stew Beef

A hearty beef stew with vegetables, herbs, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Stew Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the beef

  1. Combine the beef and hard fat with water or weak gravy in a stew-pan.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, sweet herbs, and cloves.

  3. Cover the pan tightly.

  4. Stew over low heat for 4 hours.

  5. Add turnips, carrots, leek, celery, bread crust, and vinegar.

  6. Continue cooking until the vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the stew to a deep dish.

  2. Keep the dish warm over hot water.

  3. Cover the deep dish.

  4. Skim the gravy.

  5. Add pickled mushrooms.

  6. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  7. Heat the gravy.

  8. Pour the heated gravy over the beef before serving.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long, gentle stewing turns tough connective tissue tender and gives the meat a rich savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the beef and vegetables instead of running thin.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that helps thicken the gravy smoothly and adds richness.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the long-cooked gravy and balances its richness.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during cooking.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender texture to the stew as they cook.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a low, steady simmer. Gentle low heat breaks down the beef's connective tissue slowly; a hard boil toughens and dries the meat and can make the gravy cloudy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, turnip, carrot, leek, celery, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, turnip, carrot, leek, celery, bread. 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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