Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Beef Stew
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim all fat from the meat.
Cut the meat into small pieces.
Season the meat with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle the meat with 2 tablespoons of flour.
Chop the vegetables into small pieces.
Slice the potatoes.
Make the stew
Fry the trimmed meat gently in a stewpan for 10-15 minutes.
Add the chopped vegetables to the pot with the fat and fry them for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the seasoned meat to the pot and stir until the meat begins to brown.
Pour in the quart of boiling water.
Cover the pot and let it boil once.
Skim off any foam.
Reduce heat and let it simmer for 2.5 hours.
Thicken and finish
Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ½ cup of cold water until smooth and add the flour mixture to the stew.
Taste the stew and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.
Bring the stew to a boil again and cook for 10 minutes.
Add dumplings, cover tightly, and boil rapidly for an additional 10 minutes.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 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
- Beef
- Provides the main body of the stew; slow simmering softens its connective tissue into tender bites.
- Flour
- Dusted on the meat and stirred in later, it thickens the cooking liquid into a rich gravy.
- Potatoes
- Break down slightly as they cook, adding starch and body to the stew.
- Onion
- Softens and sweetens during frying, building a savory base for the stew.
The step that matters
Adding the flour mixture. Flour needs to be smooth and fully mixed into cold water before it goes in, and the stew must then boil to cook out the raw starch taste and fully thicken the liquid. Lumps form if flour meets hot liquid dry.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, potato, flour, pepper):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Okrafits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, potato, flour, 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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