Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Stewed Steak
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Heat the dripping in a pan.
Fry the onion, cut into thin rings, until golden brown, then remove.
Fry the meat in the same pan until browned, then remove.
Stew
Bring the stock to a boil, then return the meat and onions to the pot.
Add any vegetable trimmings and seasoning, then simmer until the meat is tender.
Thicken the gravy with flour, then bring to a boil.
Serve
Serve the steak on a hot dish, strained gravy over it, and garnish with boiled vegetables cut into fancy shapes.
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.
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together32,460 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
- Stewing steak
- Provides the main body of the dish; long simmering turns its connective tissue tender.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a gravy as it heats.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid that cooks the meat and becomes the gravy.
- Dripping
- Fat used for frying that browns the meat and onions and adds flavour.
- Onion
- Browns to add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
The step that matters
Simmering until the meat is tender. Stewing steak is tough and needs gentle, long simmering so its connective tissue breaks down. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can leave the gravy cloudy, so keep the liquid at a slow simmer.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, turnip):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Leekfits better
- Kalefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, turnip. 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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