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Hump Steaks and Onion Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hump Steaks and Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the steaks as desired.

  2. In a stewpan, heat the dripping over low heat and add the sliced onions and sugar.

  3. Stir until the onions are browned, then gradually add the flour.

  4. Pour in the broth (or hot water) and season with pepper and salt.

  5. Let it boil gently until the onions are soft, then strain the mixture through a sieve.

  6. In the same stewpan, heat a little dripping and add another finely chopped onion.

  7. Stir until hot and browned, then add the strained sauce and ketchup.

  8. Bring to a boil and serve with the steaks.

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. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, pepper, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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