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Stewed Beef Steaks

Stewed beef steaks simmered with stock, shallots, herbs, bacon, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steaks from the prime part of the rump, ensuring they are not too large.

  2. In a stew pan, add ½ cup of stock and place the beef steaks inside.

  3. Season the steaks with coarse sea salt and Cayenne pepper.

  4. Add 8 shallots, a bunch of thyme, a bunch of parsley, and a few blades of mace tied together.

  5. Cover the steaks with fat bacon and place white paper over the bacon.

Stew

  1. Cover the stew pan and simmer gently on a slow stove for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the liquid from the steaks and skim off the fat.

  2. Reduce the liquid nearly to a glaze, then add the stewed mushrooms.

  3. Arrange the steaks around a serving dish and place the mushrooms in the center.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Slow simmering in stock turns the tough rump cut tender and moist.
Shallots
Their mild sweetness and aroma flavour the braising liquid as they soften.
Fat bacon
Melting fat and salty meat flavour enrich the liquid and keep the steaks moist.
Stock
Provides the liquid that braises the steaks and becomes the base of the glaze.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid nearly to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the liquid as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overreducing can make it overly salty and sticky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, shallot, thyme, parsley, mushroom):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, shallot, thyme, parsley, mushroom. 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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