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Beef Stewed Savoury

A beef stew cooked slowly with bacon, peppercorns, stock, gherkins, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Stewed Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Lay one slice of bacon at the bottom of a jar.

  2. Add the rump steak, peppercorns, and stock, then place the other slice of bacon on top.

  3. Tightly fasten the jar and place it in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring the water does not cover the jar.

  4. Stew gently for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and remove all the fat.

  2. Add the chopped gherkins and capers to the gravy.

  3. Heat the gravy until hot 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. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle stewing.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that forms the gravy and keeps the meat moist.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour that drips into the stewing liquid.
Gherkins
Add sharp acidity that brightens the rich, fatty gravy.
Capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that contrasts with the rich meat.

The step that matters

Keep the water below the jar's lid during stewing. If the water covers the jar, the boiling water heats the contents too hard and fast, which can toughen the meat and cloud the gravy. Gentle, indirect heat lets collagen break down slowly for a tender result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, parsley, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, parsley, capers. 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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