Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Steak and Oysters

A stew of thick steak pieces simmered with water, port wine, and oyster liquor, finished with oysters and garnished with fried bread and parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Oyster and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Steak and Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Fry the steak in a pan for about 15 minutes.

  2. Add ½ pint of water, season with salt and pepper, and add the liquor from the oysters.

  3. Cover the pan and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

  4. Mix the flour with the port wine until smooth, then thicken the gravy with this mixture.

Add the oysters and serve

  1. Remove the pan from heat, add the oysters, and stir until they are plump.

  2. Do not let it boil after adding the oysters.

  3. Dish up the steak, arrange the oysters around it, and pour the gravy over.

  4. Garnish with fried bread brushed with egg white and dipped in grated parmesan cheese.

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. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Port wine + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Becomes tender during the long gentle simmer and forms the body of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the gravy, enriching its flavour.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and firm, plump texture when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Add the oysters off the heat and do not boil. Oysters turn rubbery and shrink when overcooked. Removing the pan from heat and keeping it below a boil lets them warm through and plump gently while keeping their texture and 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes