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Jugged Steak

A steak baked in stock thickened with flour, served with the resulting gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Jugged Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the steak with a rolling pin.

  2. Place the meat in a jar in the oven.

  3. Add enough thickened stock to cover the meat.

  4. Add the onion, cloves, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Pour the gravy over the steak through a sieve when 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Long, moist cooking breaks down tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender.
Stock
Provides the liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock so it becomes a gravy that clings to the meat.
Onion
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the stock as it cooks.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Add enough thickened stock to cover the meat. Keeping the steak fully submerged in liquid during the long bake stops the exposed surface from drying out, and the moist heat slowly softens the meat's connective tissue.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, meat, clove, pepper. 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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