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 ↓
Steak, Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the fat from the steak and set it aside.
Cut the lean meat into 5-6 pieces.
Dice or julienne the vegetables and keep them in water until needed.
Make the stew
Heat the butter in a stewpan and fry the steak quickly until browned on both sides.
Remove the steak.
Add the trimmings of the vegetables and flour to the pan, fry until brown, then add the stock or water and stir until boiling.
Return the meat to the pan, season to taste, cover closely, and cook gently for about 2 hours.
Prepare the garnish and serve
Boil the diced or sliced vegetables in salted water until tender.
Fry the reserved fat until nicely browned.
Arrange the steak on a hot dish, strain the sauce over it, place the browned fat on top, and garnish with the prepared vegetables.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 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
- Beef steak
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle cooking.
- Flour
- Browned with the vegetable trimmings, it thickens the stock into a sauce.
- Butter
- Fat used to brown the steak and build colour and flavour in the pan.
- Stock or water
- Forms the liquid that cooks the meat and becomes the sauce.
- Onion
- Adds savoury, sweet flavour to the sauce as it browns with the trimmings.
- Carrot
- Adds sweetness and body to the sauce and the garnish.
The step that matters
Browning the steak quickly. Searing the meat over high heat builds browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or leaving it too long steams the meat instead, leaving it grey and less flavourful.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Okrafits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, 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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