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Rump Steaks

Grilled or broiled rump steaks served with optional butter, catsup, eschalot, onion gravy, or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Rump Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Preheat your grill or broiler.

  2. Season the rump steaks with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Broil the steaks, turning frequently with steak tongs.

  4. Once cooked, place the steaks on a hot dish and rub butter on each steak.

Make the sauces and garnish

  1. Warm catsup in the dish before serving.

  2. Chop eschalots finely and warm them in the dish with or without catsup.

  3. Slice onions and cook them in a pan with a little butter and 2 tablespoons of water until browned.

  4. Add ½ cup of gravy or broth to the onions and simmer until tender.

  5. Strain and chop the onions, then return them to the gravy.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, mushroom catsup, and port wine, and simmer for 5 minutes.

  7. Pour the onion gravy onto the dish and place the broiled steak on top.

  8. Rub more butter on the steak.

  9. Chop an anchovy and mix it with ¼ cup of melted butter and pickles.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Rump steaks
Provide the main meat, which is cooked by broiling to brown the surface and stay tender inside.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when rubbed onto the hot steak and cooked onions.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when browned and simmered into the gravy.

The step that matters

Turning the steaks while broiling. Frequent turning with tongs helps the steak cook evenly and brown without drying out, since the surface heats much faster than the centre.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, mushroom, port wine, anchovy):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, mushroom, port wine, anchovy. 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.

More rump steak recipes

Pie 16Broiled 8Gravy 4Sauce 4Stew 3 See all 17 →

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