Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Flank Steak
Ingredients
Directions
Make the stew
Simmer the flank steak for 2½ hours.
Remove the meat and strain the sauce.
Peel and parboil the potatoes, placing 6 in a stewpan.
Add the meat and the remaining 6 potatoes.
Pour in the strained sauce and soup stock or hot water.
Simmer for 30 minutes.
Make the dumplings
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt for the dumplings.
Combine the mixture with lukewarm milk.
Finish and serve
Add spoonfuls of dough to the stew.
Add dumplings and cover.
Boil slowly for 15 minutes longer.
Boil the sauce rapidly until reduced by one-third.
Taste for seasoning.
Arrange the ingredients on a platter.
Pour the sauce over the beef, potatoes, and dumplings before serving.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flank steak
- Becomes tender through long simmering and supplies the main meat and flavour of the stew.
- Potatoes
- Hold their shape while simmering and absorb the savoury sauce, adding body to the stew.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dumplings as its starch sets during cooking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the moist dough, helping the dumplings rise and turn light.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour into a soft dough and adds richness and tenderness to the dumplings.
The step that matters
Add the dumplings and keep the stew at a gentle boil. Dumplings need to steam through in a covered pot. A rapid boil can break them apart, while lifting the lid lets steam escape and leaves them dense and gummy.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter):
- Potatothe original
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Leekfits less well
- Shallotfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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