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A Breakfast Stew

A slow-cooked beef stew with onion, spices, and Halford sauce, served cold or reheated.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Breakfast Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Place the meat and chopped onion in a saucepan with lukewarm water.

Cook and chill

  1. Cover and cook slowly for at least 2.5 hours without boiling hard.

  2. When tender, pour the stew into a bowl. Add salt and pepper.

  3. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. The next day, return the stew to the saucepan.

  2. Bring the stew to a boil.

  3. Stir in the spices and herbs.

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. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Summer savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 protein, which becomes tender through slow, gentle cooking.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Cook slowly without boiling hard. Vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the stew cloudy and dry. Gentle, slow heat breaks down connective tissue so the beef becomes tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, parsley, summer savory, marjoram, allspice, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, parsley, summer savory, marjoram, allspice, sauce. 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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