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Beefsteak Chowder

A soup made with beef steak, potatoes, onions, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steak into 2-inch pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. In a pot, add the steak and cold water, then cook slowly until tender.

  3. In a skillet, fry the sliced onions in butter or salt pork fat.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the fried onions and sliced potatoes to the meat in the pot.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

  3. Blend the flour with a bit of cold water to make a smooth paste, then add to the pot to thicken.

  4. As the water boils away, add more as needed.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the broth.
Potatoes
Add body and starch, softening as they cook into the broth.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma when fried in fat before adding to the pot.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly body-rich broth when blended with cold water first.
Butter or salt pork fat
Carries flavor and helps brown and soften the onions before they enter the pot.

The step that matters

Blending the flour with cold water. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because starch granules swell unevenly before they can disperse. Mixing it into a smooth paste with cold water first lets it distribute evenly, so the chowder thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, potato, flour, butter. 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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