Skip to main content
Main

Welsh Stew

A beef stew simmered with broth, lemon zest, and a mushroom ketchup thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Welsh Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a pot, pour the broth over the beef and bring to a boil.

  2. Add salt and cayenne pepper, then reduce to a simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Add the lemon zest and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the rice flour with the mushroom ketchup, lemon juice, and soy sauce until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the stew and cook for an additional 15 minutes before serving.

  3. For added flavor, incorporate port or white wine if desired.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  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

Beef
Tender cuts become soft and juicy during the long, gentle simmer.
Rice flour
Thickens the stew's liquid into a smooth, light gravy as it cooks.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savory, umami flavor to the broth.
Lemon zest
Adds bright aroma and a fresh citrus note that balances the rich meat.
Port or white wine
Adds acidity and fruity depth to the gravy when included.

The step that matters

Mixing the rice flour smoothly before stirring it in. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid dry. Whisking it smoothly with the liquids first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the stew thickens without lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, rice, flour, mushroom, ketchup, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes