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Staffordshire Beef-steaks

A stew of beef steaks, onions, and catsup or walnut liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Staffordshire Beef-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Flatten the beef steaks slightly with a rolling pin.

  2. Season with flour and coarse sea salt.

  3. Fry the steaks with sliced onion until light brown.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the steaks in a stew pan and pour boiling water over them to create a sauce.

  2. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of catsup or walnut liquor 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  4. Beef + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together460 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
The main protein, which becomes tender during gentle stewing.
Flour
Coats the steaks so they brown and help thicken the sauce.
Sliced onion
Softens and browns while frying, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Catsup or walnut liquor
Adds tangy, savoury flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 30 minutes. Gentle, low simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in beef slowly. A rapid boil would toughen the muscle fibres and leave the meat chewy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, onion):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, onion. 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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