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Stewed Beefsteak

Stewed beefsteak slices seasoned with pepper, salt, cloves, and nutmeg, simmered in water for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the round steak until tender, then cut it into slices.

  2. Dredge the slices with flour, pepper, and salt, then roll them tightly.

Stew

  1. Place the rolls in a stew pan with a few cloves and a scrap of nutmeg.

  2. Cover with water and stew for three 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 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
Forms the main body of the dish; pounding breaks down tough fibers so it softens during stewing.
Flour
Coats the slices so the surface thickens slightly and helps the rolls hold their shape.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the stewing liquid and meat.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the beef during long cooking.

The step that matters

Stewing the rolls for three hours. Long, gentle simmering in liquid is what converts the tough connective tissue in round steak into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen muscle fibers and dry the meat, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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