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Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Beefsteak smothered in onions is a savory dish where a steak is cooked with onions and simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the sliced onions in a pan for 10 minutes, stirring often.

  2. Remove half of the onions and set aside.

Smother and simmer

  1. Pound the steak and place it on the remaining onions in the pan.

  2. Cover the steak with the reserved onions.

  3. Dredge each layer with salt, pepper, and flour.

  4. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the steak and onions.

  5. Cover the pan tightly and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the steak in the center of a dish with the onions heaped around.

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 + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming a moist bed that flavours the steak.
Beef steak
Provides the main protein; pounding thins it so it cooks through during simmering.
Flour
Dusted on each layer, it helps thicken the pan juices and lightly coat the meat.

The step that matters

Covering the pan tightly while simmering. A tight lid traps steam so the steak braises in moist heat and stays tender. If the lid is loose, liquid evaporates, the meat can dry out, and the flour may not thicken the juices properly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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