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English Stew

A stew of sliced beef cooked with pickled cucumber or cabbage, vinegar, ketchup, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

English Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the cold beef or fresh meat into slices.

  2. Season the meat with pepper, salt, and flour.

Layer and sauce

  1. Layer the meat in a pan and sprinkle finely chopped pickled cucumber or cabbage over it.

  2. In a bowl, mix the water, a little vinegar, the pickle, and ketchup.

  3. Pour the mixture over the meat and cook in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cucumbertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or fresh meat
Provides the main body of the stew, becoming tender as it cooks in liquid.
Flour
Lightly coats the meat and helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Pickled cucumber or cabbage
Adds sharp, tangy acidity that cuts through the richness of the meat.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato-based acidity that colours and flavours the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the meat and cook in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes. Cooking gently in liquid lets the meat's tough fibres soften. If the oven runs too hot or the pan dries out, the meat can toughen and the sauce can scorch.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, vinegar, ketchup. 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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