Name: Beef Stew for Breakfast
Ingredients: 1 quart beef, cut into dice; 2 teaspoons chopped onion; 1 pint cold boiled potatoes, cut into dice; 1 tablespoon butter; Salt and black pepper to taste; 2 teaspoons flour; Butter for toast

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Stew for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the stew

Combine beef and onion in a skillet with enough water to cover; simmer for 20 minutes.
Add diced potatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
Mix flour with a little water to make a batter, stir into skillet, and cook until thickened; season to taste.
Optionally add a little summer savory for extra flavor.

Serve

Prepare buttered toast on a heated dish and pour stew over 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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Beef: Provides the main body and savory flavor of the stew as it simmers.
Cold boiled potatoes: Add starchy bulk and soft texture to the stew.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy-like consistency.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour batter into the skillet. Flour mixed with water must be stirred in and cooked until thickened so it does not form lumps and the starch fully gelatinizes, which gives the stew a smooth body.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, butter, pepper, flour):

Chivefits about as well
Onionthe original
Leekfits about as well
Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, butter, pepper, flour. 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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Beef Stew for Breakfast