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Beef Skirts

Broiled beef skirts served with brown gravy, mushroom ketchup, shallot vinegar, butter, flour, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Skirts

Ingredients

Directions

Broil

  1. Broil the beef skirts for 8 to 10 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. If preferred, stew the beef in brown gravy.

  2. Add mushroom ketchup and shallot vinegar to the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the broiled beef over spinach or fried toast seasoned with pepper and salt.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef skirts
Main protein that browns under the broiler for savoury flavour.
Brown gravy
Liquid base that carries the flavour and keeps the beef moist.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth to the gravy.
Shallot vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the thickened gravy a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter and flour. Cooking the flour in the butter before adding it to the liquid coats the starch grains, so the gravy thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mushroom, ketchup, vinegar, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mushroom, ketchup, vinegar, butter, flour, pepper. 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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