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Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Beefsteak smothered in onions cooked with salt pork or bacon, simmered, then baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Fry the salt pork or bacon in a pan until the fat is rendered, then remove the crackling.

  2. Add the sliced onions to the hot fat and fry for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Cook the onions

  1. Stir in the salt, black pepper, and boiling water, then simmer over moderate heat for 30 minutes until the water evaporates and the onions are browned.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the broiled steak in the pan with the onions, cover it with some onions, and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer the steak to a hot dish, heap the onions over and around it, and serve.

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 + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Onions
Soften and brown to provide sweetness and the main body of the topping.
Salt pork or bacon
Renders fat for frying the onions and adds savory, smoky flavor.
Boiling water
Moistens the onions and cooks them down before the water evaporates and browning begins.

The step that matters

Simmering until the water evaporates. The onions only brown once the added water has boiled off. If you stop early, they stay steamed and pale, and the sugars never caramelize into rich flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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