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Stewed Beet Root

A dish of tender beet root stewed in veal gravy, thickened with arrowroot and finished with cream and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Beet Root

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beet

  1. Bake or boil the beet root until tender.

  2. Let the beet root cool.

  3. Peel the beet root.

  4. Slice the beet root.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the veal gravy or broth in a saucepan.

  2. Add the arrowroot and cream to the gravy. Stir until combined.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the vinegar.

  5. Serve.

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. Arrowroot + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Arrowroot + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Veal + arrowroottop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beet root
Provides the main body, earthy sweetness and colour of the dish.
Veal gravy or broth
Supplies the savoury meat base that the sauce is built on.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce without clouding it.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot and cream to the hot gravy. Arrowroot thickens when heated, so it should be stirred in evenly and the sauce kept from boiling hard. Cream can curdle or split if it boils vigorously, so heat should stay gentle while it is combined.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, vinegar):

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, vinegar. 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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