Name: Sauce Fob Stewed Beef
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon flour; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup beef broth; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; 1 tablespoon ketchup

Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauce Fob Stewed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the flour and butter together until smooth.
Stir the mixture into the beef broth and cook for a few minutes.
Season with salt, pepper, mustard, and ketchup.
Heat the sauce until very hot and pour it around the beef.

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.

Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,066 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, beef, pepper, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.