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Swiss Steak

A braised steak cooked with onions, carrots, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Swiss Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound flour into the round steak using the edge of a heavy plate.

Brown the steak

  1. Heat lard or drippings in a skillet and fry the steak until brown on both sides.

Braise

  1. Cover the steak with water.

  2. Add the chopped onion, carrot, and celery.

  3. Cover closely and cook for 2 hours.

  4. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 with long, moist cooking.
Flour
Coats the steak, helping it brown and thickening the cooking liquid slightly.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the liquid.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the braising liquid.
Celery
Contributes aroma and savory depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the steak in the fat. Frying until deeply brown on both sides builds flavor through the Maillard reaction, which the long water braise cannot add later. Pale meat will taste flat in the finished dish.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, meat, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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