Skip to main content
Main

Brown Stew

A beef stew with dumplings made by browning meat, simmering with onions, tomatoes, and flour, then adding dumpling dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brown Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the beef

  1. Melt the trimmed fat in a saucepan.

  2. Dust the beef with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Brown the beef quickly in the hot fat.

  4. Move the beef to one side.

  5. Add 2 more tablespoons of flour and mix.

  6. Pour in 1 quart of boiling water and stir until boiling.

  7. Add 1½ teaspoons of salt, ¼ teaspoon of pepper, and the chopped onion.

  8. Cover the saucepan.

  9. Simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  10. One hour before the stew is done, add the chopped tomatoes.

Make the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix 3 cups of flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add just enough milk or water to make a soft dough and mix quickly.

  3. Roll out the dough.

  4. Cut into small biscuits.

  5. Place the biscuits on top of the stew.

  6. Cover the stew.

  7. Cook for 20 minutes without lifting the cover.

Serve

  1. Serve the dumplings around a large platter with the stew in the center.

  2. Pour over the gravy.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Stewing beef
Provides the main substance; slow simmering turns its connective tissue tender.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps form a gravy as the liquid simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce, adding flavour as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dumpling dough so the biscuits rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keep the lid on the dumplings. Lifting the cover releases steam, which the dumplings need to cook through and rise; the dough can turn heavy and doughy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, meat, sauce, pepper, tomato, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, meat, sauce, pepper, tomato, milk. 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.

More brown stew recipes

Turkey 5 See all 19 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes