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Stewed Steak

A stew of steak, onions, ketchup, caper liquor, pepper, sea salt, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the steak in butter until browned.

  2. Add water to the stewpan with the steak, then add the sliced onions.

  3. Stir in ketchup and a little caper liquor, then season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover the pan and let it stew slowly.

  5. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it stews.
Onions
Soften during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as the butter-flour mixture is stirred in.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that give the gravy depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Let it stew slowly under a cover. Gentle, covered heat lets the connective tissue in the steak break down slowly, so the meat turns tender without drying out. Rapid boiling toughens the meat and can scorch the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, pepper, butter, 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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