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Italian Beef-steaks

A slow-cooked Italian beef steak seasoned with pepper, salt, and onion, served with its own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Italian Beef-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut a large steak from the rump or any tender part.

  2. Beat the steak and season it with pepper, salt, and chopped onion.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the steak in a covered iron stew pan without water, next to the fire.

  2. Ensure it does not burn, maintaining a strong heat.

  3. Cook for 2 to 3 hours until tender, then serve with its own gravy.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Tender cut that becomes soft during long, slow cooking in its own juices.
Onion
Adds moisture and aroma that flavour the steak and the gravy it releases.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat strong without burning. Cooking covered without water depends on steady heat to draw out juices and form gravy. If the heat is too low the meat stays tough, and if it is too high or unattended the juices scorch on the pan.

“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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