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Beefsteak Smothered

A thick cut of round steak is seared, then simmered in boiling water for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Pound the steak thoroughly on both sides.

  2. Sprinkle with flour and pound again, adding flour until 1 cup has been used.

Sear and season

  1. Heat an iron pan until very hot and sear the steak well on both sides.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Simmer

  1. Cover the steak with boiling water and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Slip a knife under the steak frequently to prevent burning.

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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 with long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the pounded steak, helping it brown and thickening the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Slip a knife under the steak frequently. Flour-coated meat sticks and scorches on the pan base during simmering. Lifting it often keeps the coating from burning and releasing bitter flavors.

“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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