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Stewed Rump

A stew of beef rump cooked with water, beer, port wine, vinegar, ketchup, herbs, and optional mustard, served with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Stewed Rump

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Rump

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half roast the rump.

  2. Place it in a large pot with water, small beer, port wine, salt, vinegar, and ketchup.

  3. Add the bunch of sweet herbs.

Stew and serve

  1. Simmer gently for several hours until tender.

  2. Clear off the fat and serve in a deep dish.

  3. Garnish with carrots, turnips, truffles, morels, or pickles.

  4. If the gravy is too much, reserve some for 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Tarragon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rump
Long gentle simmering breaks down tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and moist.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and helps soften the meat during the long stew.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and color to the gravy.
Ketchup
Adds sweet and tangy flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for several hours until tender. Boiling vigorously toughens meat proteins and makes the gravy cloudy, while slow simmering lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, so the meat turns tender and the gravy gains body.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, port wine, vinegar, ketchup, tarragon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, port wine, vinegar, ketchup, tarragon, parsley, thyme. 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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