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Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Beefsteak smothered in onions is a layered dish of steak and onions cooked in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the onions

  1. Brown the salt pork in a skillet.

  2. Remove the pork and add the sliced onions; fry for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove all but a thin layer of onions from the skillet.

Layer and smother

  1. Layer the steak on the onions, followed by a layer of onions, then another slice of steak, and cover with remaining onions.

  2. Dredge each layer with salt, pepper, and flour.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the layers and cover tightly.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the steak in the center of a dish, heaped with onions around it.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming a moist bed that surrounds the steak.
Steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender while simmering in the onions and liquid.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the skillet that cooks the onions and adds savory flavor.
Flour
Dusted between layers, it thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy.

The step that matters

Remove all but a thin layer of onions from the skillet. Leaving too many onions in the pan with the rendered fat can make the dish greasy and crowd the layers, so they steam unevenly instead of smothering the steak.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, flour. 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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