Name: Rump Steak, Stewed, with Onions
Ingredients: 1 pound tender rump steak; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 tablespoons butter or beef dripping; 2 large Spanish onions, thinly sliced

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rump Steak, Stewed, with Onions

Ingredients

1 pound tender rump steak
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2 tablespoons butter or beef dripping
2 large Spanish onions, thinly sliced

Directions

Prepare

Dredge the steak with pepper and salt.
Butter a saucepan with a tightly fitting lid or rub it with beef dripping.

Stew

Place the steak in the saucepan and add the sliced onions and butter or dripping.
Cover the saucepan and place it by the fire to steam gently for 2.5 hours.

Serve

Remove the steak, place it on a dish, top with onions, and serve immediately.

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.

Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak: Is the main meat that becomes tender during slow, moist cooking.
Spanish onions: Soften and sweeten as they steam, forming a savory topping and gravy base.
Butter or beef dripping: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the onions cook evenly.

The step that matters

Steaming gently with a tight lid for 2.5 hours. Low, moist heat breaks down the connective tissue in rump steak slowly. Too much heat or a loose lid can boil or dry the meat, leaving it tough, so the lid should fit tightly and the heat stay gentle.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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Rump Steak, Stewed, with Onions