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Steak En Casserole

A casserole of browned steak with carrots, turnip, celery, onion, and stock, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Steak En Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the carrot, turnip, celery, and onion in the bottom of a casserole.

Brown the steak

  1. In a hot skillet, brown the steak pieces on all sides.

  2. Transfer the browned steak to the casserole, laying it over the vegetables.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in the boiling stock.

  2. Cover with the lid and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

  3. Serve directly from the casserole.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak or rump
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow, covered baking in liquid.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the stock.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it cooks in the stock.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens during baking.
Boiling stock
Provides moisture and savory flavor, keeping the steak from drying out in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the steak pieces on all sides. Browning in a hot skillet creates flavorful browned crust through the Maillard reaction. Skipping it or crowding the pan leaves the steak grey and less flavorful, since moisture steams instead of browning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley. 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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