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Dutch Stew

A slow‑cooked stew of round steak with bread crumbs, tapioca, peas, tomatoes, onion, and carrot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the round steak in a casserole dish.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, pearl tapioca, peas, tomatoes, onion, and carrot if using.

  3. Cover the ingredients with water.

Cook

  1. Cover the casserole and cook very slowly for 3 hours or more.

  2. Season with salt and pepper 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Pearl tapioca
Swells during slow cooking and thickens the liquid into a stew-like body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the stew as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that blend into the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness that deepens as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly, covered, for 3 hours or more. Low, gentle heat lets the tough round steak break down and become tender without drying out or toughening. Rushing with high heat can leave the meat chewy and the liquid scorched.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, peas, tomato, onion, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, peas, tomato, 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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