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Rump Steak, Baked, with Onions

A baked rump steak cooked with onions, beef stock, and spices, served with a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rump Steak, Baked, with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Brown the steak

  1. Fry the steak in hot fat until lightly and evenly browned.

  2. Transfer the steak to an earthenware dish with a closely-fitting lid.

Braise and serve

  1. Pour the beef stock over the steak.

  2. Add the boiled onions, Harvey's sauce, cloves, salt, and cayenne.

  3. Cover the dish and bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  4. Remove from the oven and garnish with fried onion rings.

  5. Strain the gravy from the baking dish over the steak and serve hot.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender steak
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, moist baking.
Beef stock
Provides liquid for gentle braising and forms the base of the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and soft texture that melt into the gravy during baking.
Harvey's sauce or walnut ketchup
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Bake gently with the lid closed. Low, covered heat lets the tough connective tissue in the steak soften slowly without drying the meat. Higher heat or an uncovered dish would toughen the surface and reduce the gravy too quickly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, sauce, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, sauce, 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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