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Stewed Steak

A stew of rump steak with carrots, turnip, onions, butter, flour, mushroom ketchup, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the skin and fat from the steak.

  2. Wash the carrot and turnip in cold water.

  3. Scrape the carrot clean and dice it.

  4. Peel the turnip and dice it.

  5. Peel the onions and quarter them.

Make the stew

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

  2. Add the onions, carrot, and turnip to the stewpan with the steak.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and pepper together.

  4. Gradually stir in the water until smooth.

  5. Pour the sauce into the stewpan with the steak and vegetables, stirring until it boils and thickens.

  6. Let it gently simmer for one hour.

Render the fat

  1. Cut the reserved fat into small pieces and place them on a baking dish.

  2. Cook the fat in the oven until browned.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering and browns well at the start.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it boils.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the steak and carries flavor into the stewpan.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that deepen as they cook down in the sauce.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew as it softens.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, earthy depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour and water until smooth. Flour must be fully dispersed in cold water before it meets the hot liquid; otherwise it clumps into lumps that do not dissolve. Stirring it smooth first lets the starch thicken the sauce evenly as it boils.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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