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Beefsteak Smothered in Onions No I

Beefsteak smothered in onions, butter, and water, served covered with the onion mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Beefsteak Smothered in Onions No I

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onions

  1. In a saucepan, stew the onions with water, butter, salt, and pepper until very tender.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and stir it through the onions.

Prepare and cook the steak

  1. If using round steak, beat it with a rolling pin until almost a pulp, then cut off the skin and reshape it.

  2. Broil the steak, then add it to the saucepan with the onions and stew together for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve the steak covered with the onions.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Beefsteak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews with the onions.
Onions
Break down during stewing into a soft, sweet, thick sauce that covers the steak.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid from the onions into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the onion sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the onions until very tender. Onions must soften fully before the flour is added, so they release their sugars and moisture and blend into a smooth sauce rather than staying sharp and lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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