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Stewed Steak a LA Russe

A stew of rump steak with carrot, turnip, onion, butter, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Steak a LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Trim the fat and skin from the steak.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Brown the steak on both sides.

  4. Add the flour and brown it.

  5. Add the chopped vegetables.

Stew

  1. Pour in the stock and stir until it boils.

  2. Remove from heat and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Shred the carrot and turnip.

  2. Boil the shredded carrot and turnip separately.

  3. Cook the fat from the steak in the oven until crispy.

  4. Serve the steak hot.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 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

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which browns for flavour and becomes tender with slow simmering.
Flour
Browns with the fat and thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the steak and carries flavour into the stew.
Stock
Supplies the moisture and savoury flavour of the stew liquid.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the stock boils. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break down the sauce. A gentle simmer over the full hour slowly softens the connective tissue in the steak and keeps the liquid smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, pepper, butter, flour. 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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