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Steak En Casserole

A casserole of seared steak with carrots, celery, onions, and stock, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Steak En Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wipe and trim the steak.

Sear and layer

  1. Heat a frying pan until very hot, then sear the steak, turning several times until both sides are browned.

  2. In a casserole, place the diced carrot, chopped celery, coarse sea salt, sweet red pepper (or white pepper), and tiny peeled onions.

  3. Arrange the seared steak on top of the vegetables.

  4. Pour the stock or stock and strained tomato over the steak.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the casserole and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2.5 hours.

  2. Serve the casserole directly from the oven.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, covered braising.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that gently cooks the steak and vegetables and forms the sauce.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the vegetables and the cooking liquid.
Onions
Add mild sweetness that softens and flavours the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Sear the steak until both sides are browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep, savoury flavour that the gentle moist heat of the casserole cannot create on its own.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, pepper, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, tomato. 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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