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Beef Skirt Steak

A simple stew of beef skirt seasoned with pepper, salt, flour, butter, and water, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Skirt Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the beef skirt with pepper and salt.

  2. Dredge the seasoned skirt with flour.

  3. Place the skirt in an earthen dish.

  4. Add enough water to partly cover the meat.

Cook

  1. Mix the butter with the flour.

  2. Add the butter-flour mixture to the water.

  3. Cook for 2 hours.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef skirt
Is the main protein; its connective tissue softens during the long cooking to give tenderness.
Flour
Coats the meat and, mixed with butter and water, thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened liquid.

The step that matters

Add enough water to partly cover the meat. Partly submerging the beef in liquid keeps it moist during the long cook, while the exposed top can still brown and concentrate flavor.

“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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