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Farmer Stew

A stew of round steak coated in flour and simmered in water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Farmer Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Pound flour into both sides of the round steak until it absorbs as much as possible.

  2. Fry the steak in drippings, butter, or other fat in a heavy pot or frying pan.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add enough water to cover the steak.

  2. Cover the dish tightly to trap steam and simmer for 2 hours or until tender.

  3. If the gravy is not thick enough, blend it with additional flour.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Round steak
Tough cut that becomes tender during long, covered simmering.
Flour
Coats the steak to help it brown and thickens the gravy.
Drippings, butter, or other fat
Fat for frying the steak, adding browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer covered for 2 hours. Long, gentle, covered simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in round steak; rushing or uncovering the pot can leave the meat chewy or dry out the liquid.

“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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