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Beefsteak with Oysters

Beefsteak cooked with onions, water, pepper, salt, port wine, flour, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the steak in a frying pan with butter.

  2. Add water, onion, pepper, and salt.

Stew and finish

  1. Cover the pan and stew slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Stir in port wine, flour, and the reserved oyster liquor.

  3. Add the oysters and cook until heated through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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 becomes tender during slow stewing.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and soft texture to the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and helps brown the steak's surface.

The step that matters

Add the oysters and cook until heated through. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked. Adding them at the end, just until heated through, keeps them tender and plump.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, port wine, flour, oyster. 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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