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Stewed Rump of Beef

A hearty stew made with rump of beef, bacon, vegetables, and a rich sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Rump of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the rump of beef and cut it away.

  2. Insert the bacon pieces into the beef at a slant.

  3. Chop the beef bone and place it in a large stewpan.

  4. Add cloves, onions, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  5. Tie the rump with string and place it in the stewpan.

Simmer the beef

  1. Cover with water, add salt and burnt onions, and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and let simmer for nearly 4 hours, skimming occasionally.

  3. Once cooked, strain the stock through a sieve into a basin, keeping the beef warm.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stewpan, melt butter over heat, then add flour and stir until slightly brown.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool, then add 2 quarts of the stock and stir until boiling.

  3. Add carrots, turnips, and button onions to the sauce and simmer until tender, skimming as needed.

  4. Add a little powdered sugar and adjust thickness with more stock if necessary.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef on a dish with sauce around it.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rump
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender through long, slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and then combined with stock.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce base.
Fat bacon
Lards the beef, adding fat and savoury flavour as it renders during cooking.
Button onions
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Stirring the flour in butter until only slightly brown and cooling before adding stock helps prevent lumps and keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley. 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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