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To Stew Beef-steaks

A stew of beef steaks simmered in strong gravy with butter and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

To Stew Beef-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half-broil the beef steaks.

  2. Lay the beef steaks in a stew pan and season to taste.

Stew and finish

  1. Add enough strong gravy to cover the steaks and a bit of butter rolled in flour.

  2. Let them stew for half an hour.

  3. Stir in the beaten yolks of two eggs and cook for another ten minutes.

  4. Serve.

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. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Main protein; slow stewing in gravy tenderizes the meat.
Strong gravy
Provides the liquid that moistens and flavors the steaks as they stew.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Egg yolks
Stirred in at the end, they thicken the sauce and add richness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the sauce boils hard after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.

“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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