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Beefsteak Smothered

A tender round steak smothered in boiling water after being floured and seared.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound a slice of round steak ½ inch thick until tender.

  2. Sprinkle both sides of the steak with flour.

  3. Pound the steak again, adding flour until 1 cup is used.

Sear and season

  1. Heat an iron pan until very hot.

  2. Sear the steak on both sides.

  3. Season the steak with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Smother and simmer

  1. Cover the steak with boiling water.

  2. Let the steak simmer gently for one hour.

  3. 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
Provides the meat, which pounding tenderizes before cooking.
All-purpose flour
Coats the steak, helping it brown and thickening the pan juices.

The step that matters

Slip a knife under the steak frequently. Flour-coated meat sticks and scorches on the hot pan base during simmering. Lifting it often keeps the coating from burning while the liquid cooks it through.

“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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