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Stewed Steak

A stew of stewing steak, kidney, onion, and butter, simmered slowly in water and finished with a flour‑based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onion finely.

  2. Fry the sliced onion in the butter until soft.

  3. Trim the steak.

  4. Dredge the steak with flour.

  5. Fry the steak until nicely browned along with the sliced kidney.

Stew

  1. In a separate pan, heat the water.

  2. Add the steak and onion mixture to the water.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the remaining flour with cold water.

  2. Add some hot gravy to the flour mixture.

  3. Return the mixture to the pan.

  4. Season and let it boil.

  5. Dish up the steak.

  6. Pour a little gravy around it.

  7. Serve the remainder in a gravy boat.

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).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Stewing steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow, long cooking in liquid.
Flour
Coats the steak for browning and thickens the gravy.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savory depth to the gravy.
Butter or dripping
Fat for frying the onion and browning the meat, adding flavour.
Bullock's kidney
Adds rich, savory flavour and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Fry the steak until nicely browned. Browning the flour-dusted meat builds deep roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed meat gives a flat-tasting gravy, so the surface needs enough heat and space to colour.

Swap the onion

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

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

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