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A Rump Steak

A rump steak served with ketchup, minced shallot, butter, pickles, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Rump Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the steak from the middle of the rump and let it tenderize.

  2. Prepare a warm dish with ketchup and minced shallot or onion.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steak at 400°F (200°C), turning it often with steak tongs for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Place the steak on the dish, rub it with butter, and garnish with pickles and horseradish.

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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Ketchup + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + shallottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together476 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ketchup + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 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

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, cooked through by broiling to a browned, savory surface.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the warm dish that the steak rests on.
Shallot or onion
Adds mild aromatic sharpness to the base under the steak.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the surface of the cooked steak.

The step that matters

Broiling the steak. Turning the steak often over direct heat helps it brown evenly without drying out. Its surface browns through the Maillard reaction, while the interior stays juicy if it is not overcooked.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ketchup, shallot, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Horseradishthe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, shallot, butter. 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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