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Stewed Steak, with Tomatoes

A thick-cut steak stewed slowly with tomatoes, biscuit crumbs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Steak, with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Cut the steak very thick and make 2 deep cuts in it.

  2. Fill the cuts with biscuit crumbs.

Stew

  1. Place the steak in a saucepan and cover with sliced tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle a little pepper and salt over the top.

  3. Allow to stew very slowly for 2 hours.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Tomato + biscuittop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during slow stewing.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavour the stewing liquid and the meat.
Biscuit crumbs
Absorb juices from the steak and thicken the stuffing in the cuts.

The step that matters

Stewing very slowly. Gentle, low heat over a long time breaks down the connective tissue in the steak, making it tender. Stewing too hard can toughen the meat and dry out the liquid.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, 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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