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Stewed Beefsteak

A stew of round steak cooked with wine, spices, and oysters, finished with a buttery gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Season and stew

  1. Mix salt, summer savory, and pepper with the grated onion.

  2. Rub the beef on both sides with the mixture.

  3. Place the beef in a kettle with water, wine, cloves, allspice, mace, and 1 ounce of butter mixed with ½ ounce of flour.

  4. Cover and stew gently until the beef is tender.

Brown and make the gravy

  1. Remove the beef from the gravy and fry it in the remaining butter until browned.

  2. Place the beef on a platter and drain the butter from the frying pan.

  3. Strain the gravy (there should be 1 pint) and mix the rest of the flour smoothly in a little of the gravy.

  4. Stir the flour mixture into the gravy, add the oysters, and cook until they curl.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy with oysters over the beef and 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. Summer savory + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Flour + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the beef and oysters.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and browns the beef in the final frying.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the finished gravy.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the seasoning rub.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the beef is tender. Low, slow heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in round steak. Boiling hard can toughen the meat's fibres and leave it dry, so the beef needs a gentle simmer under a cover until it is fully tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, oyster, wine, pepper, summer savory, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, oyster, wine, pepper, summer savory, clove. 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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