Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Steak with Oysters

A stew of beef steak and oysters simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Steak with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Add water and oysters to a stewpan.

  2. Rinse the oysters well.

  3. Remove the oysters from the stewpan.

  4. Heat the oyster liquor until it boils.

  5. Skim the oyster liquor and set aside.

Make the sauce and cook the steak

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a frying pan.

  2. Add the steak and cook for about 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the steak from the pan.

  4. Stir the flour into the butter until dark brown.

  5. Pour in the oyster liquor and bring to a boil.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

  7. Return the steak to the pan, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters and lemon juice.

  2. Serve on a hot dish garnished with pickles and parsley.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which browns in the butter and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Butter
Carries heat for browning the steak and adds rich, nutty flavor to the dish.
Flour
Cooked in butter to form a roux that thickens the liquid into a sauce.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor and a soft texture when added near the end.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the oysters.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the butter until dark brown. Flour cooked in fat forms a roux. Cooking it longer deepens its color and nutty flavor but weakens its thickening power, and it can scorch quickly if left unattended.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes