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To Stew a Steak

A stew of rump steak with carrots, turnip, celery, onion, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

To Stew a Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the skin and fat from the steak.

  2. Wash the carrot, turnip, and celery leaves in cold water.

  3. Scrape the carrot clean with a sharp knife.

  4. Cut the turnip in half and peel off the skin.

  5. Peel the carrot and turnip into thin ribbons, discarding the centers.

  6. Peel and shred the onion and celery.

Stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and brown the steak on both sides.

  2. Add the onion, celery, and remaining carrot and turnip to the stewpan.

  3. Pour in the water or stock mixed with flour, salt, and pepper.

  4. Stir until the sauce boils and thickens.

  5. Let it gently simmer for one hour.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 during the long gentle simmer.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it boils.
Butter
Carries the browning of the steak and adds richness to the sauce.
Onion
Adds savory depth and sweetness to the stewed liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Brown the steak on both sides. Browning creates savory flavors through the Maillard reaction, which the simmering liquid cannot produce later. Pat the meat dry so it sears rather than steams.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, butter, flour, 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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