Name: Ragout De Bceuf Au Gumbo
Ingredients: 3 lbs lean beef; 3 onions, finely chopped; 1 quart tomatoes, peeled and sliced; Salt and pepper to taste; 6 ears of corn, cut and scraped from cob; 2 oz butter; 1¼ pints okra, cut into small pieces

Why it works: Tomato and okra work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ragout De Bceuf Au Gumbo

Ingredients

3 lbs lean beef
3 onions, finely chopped
1 quart tomatoes, peeled and sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
6 ears of corn, cut and scraped from cob
2 oz butter
1¼ pints okra, cut into small pieces

Directions

Prepare the beef

Leave the beef in one solid piece, using a chunky cut from the cross-rib, horseshoe, or sirloin-butt.
Place the beef in a pot over moderate heat and cover with water.

Stew

Add the tomatoes, okra, onions, and corn; season with salt and pepper.
Add the butter and stew gently for 3 to 4 hours until the meat is tender and the vegetables form a thick purée.

Serve

Serve the beef in the center with the vegetables arranged around it.

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.

Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together327 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together715 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + okratop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together161 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 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

Lean beef: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long gentle stewing.
Onions: Add savory sweetness and body as they soften into the stew.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and moisture, and break down into the thick purée.
Corn: Adds sweetness and starch that help thicken the vegetable base.
Okra: Releases natural thickening starch that gives the gumbo its body.
Butter: Adds fat and richness that carries flavor and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Long, gentle stewing. Collagen in tough cuts of beef only breaks down into gelatin with long, low, moist heat. Simmering too hard can toughen the meat and scorch the vegetables on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, pepper, corn, butter, okra):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, pepper, corn, butter, okra. 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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Roast Beef211 recipes

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

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Ragout De Bceuf Au Gumbo