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Warmed-Over Beefsteak

A reheated corned beef steak served with mashed potatoes and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Warmed-Over Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the corned beef into small pieces across the grain.

  2. Chop the onion and set aside.

Cook the beef

  1. In a frying pan, heat the lard and add the onion.

  2. Once the onion is soft, add the beef and cook until heated through.

  3. For the gravy, strain the cooking juices and thicken with flour.

Make the potatoes and toast

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Toast the bread until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the beefsteak with mashed potatoes and toast.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

Corned beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and savory when cooked through in fat.
Onion
Softens in the hot lard and adds sweetness and aroma to the base of the dish.
Lard
Fat that carries the heat and flavor of the onion and beef.
Potatoes
Boiled until tender and mashed, they give the dish its soft, starchy side.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices into a gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked or whisked into the strained juices so it dissolves smoothly; added in lumps or without heat, it stays raw-tasting and grainy instead of thickening evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour, potato, bread):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, potato, bread. 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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