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To Fry or Broil Rump or Beef Steaks

Thinly sliced rump steaks fried or broiled, served with a ketchup and flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and ketchup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,435 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Fry or Broil Rump or Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the steaks

  1. Cut the steaks from the rump into thin layers.

  2. Fry the steaks in lard or dripping, turning them frequently until cooked.

  3. Keep the cooked steaks warm in a dish by the fire.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour off excess fat from the pan, leaving at least 2 tablespoons of gravy.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour into the gravy and heat the pan to brown it slightly.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of ketchup to the gravy and mix well.

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 + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Beef + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Rump or beef steaks
Forms the main body of the dish as the meat that is cooked and served.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy and helps it brown slightly.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, giving it a tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the gravy. Heating the flour in the fat until it turns slightly brown cooks out raw starch taste and builds flavour. Stirring well before adding liquid prevents lumps and keeps the gravy smooth.

“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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