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Tomato Steak

A slow‑cooked beef dish with tomatoes, sugar, clove, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Steak

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the beef strips and tomatoes.

  2. Stew the mixture very slowly.

  3. Add the sugar, salt, and ground clove.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the butter.

  5. If desired, add a little tomato ketchup and chopped onion.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein and substance, becoming tender as it stews slowly.
Tomatoes
Break down during slow stewing to form the sauce and add moisture and acidity.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and adds mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the sauce when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stew the mixture very slowly. Gentle, low heat lets the beef's connective tissue soften into tenderness without toughening or drying out, while the tomatoes break down into a cohesive sauce. Rapid boiling can make the meat tough and the sauce scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, clove, butter, ketchup, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, clove, butter, ketchup, onion. 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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