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Rump Steak Stewed

A stew of rump steak cooked with gravy, stock, port wine, mushrooms, brown sauce, and seasoned with horseradish, salt, cayenne, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and mushroom work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 570 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rump Steak Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the steak over a brisk fire until browned.

  2. Place the steak in a stewpan with the gravy, stock, port wine, and chopped mushrooms.

  3. Stew gently until the steak is tender.

  4. Add good brown sauce to the stewpan and shake gently.

Serve

  1. Dish the steak and top with scraped or grated horseradish.

  2. If serving with oysters or mushrooms, season with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

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. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Chopped mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the stewing liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce as it simmers with the steak.
Brown sauce
Adds rich, savoury flavour and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the steak is tender. A brisk boil toughens meat proteins and can leave the steak chewy. Gentle heat slowly breaks down connective tissue, so the steak becomes tender and the liquid stays clear and well flavoured.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, mushroom, sauce, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, mushroom, sauce, pepper, sugar. 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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