Skip to main content
Main

Beef Rl Mp-steaks Stewed

A stew of beef rump steaks simmered with onions, broth, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef Rl Mp-steaks Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Ensure the steaks are thicker than for grilling and of uniform thickness.

  2. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a stewpan and add 2 onions.

  3. Add the rump steaks and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, then turn and cook for another 5 minutes.

  4. Boil 1 pint of button onions for 30 to 60 minutes, then add their cooking liquid to the steaks.

  5. If the liquid doesn't cover the steaks, add broth or boiling water.

  6. Add 12 black peppercorns and salt, then simmer gently for about 1.5 hours.

  7. Strain off about 1½ pints of the liquid for the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate stewpan, melt 2 ounces of butter, then stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  2. Optionally, add 1 tablespoon of claret or Port wine, 1 tablespoon of mushroom ketchup, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper.

  3. Gradually add the strained liquid, bring to a boil for 15 minutes, skim, and strain again.

Serve

  1. Serve the steaks with the boiled onions around the dish and pour the gravy over.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Rump steaks
Provide the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted for cooking and for the sauce.
Flour
Forms a paste with melted butter that thickens the strained liquid into gravy.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding savoury depth to the stew liquid.
Button onions
Add mild sweetness and tender texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Gradually add the strained liquid to the flour paste. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, flour, port wine, mushroom, ketchup, 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes