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Stewed Rump Steaks

A stew of rump steak pieces with onions, pickled walnuts, carrots, turnips, and seasonings simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stewed Rump Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose rump steaks of moderate thickness and not too fatty.

  2. Cut the steaks into convenient pieces.

  3. Fry the steak pieces in a little butter or beef dripping until browned on both sides.

Stew

  1. In a stew pan, place 2 peeled and chopped onions at the bottom.

  2. Add the browned steak, 4 cut pickled walnuts, 3 chopped carrots, and 2 chopped turnips.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 tablespoons of water, then add to the pan.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and pour in 1¼ pints of water.

  5. Cover and simmer gently for 40 minutes.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the meat, which browns in fat and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Onions
Break down during simmering to add sweetness and body to the stewing liquid.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soften during gentle simmering, adding body to the stew.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add mild sweetness to the stew.
Pickled walnuts
Add a sharp, tangy acidity that contrasts with the rich meat.

The step that matters

Browning the steak pieces. Frying the meat until well browned on both sides builds deep savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the stew pale and flat-tasting.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, turnip, ketchup, flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, turnip, ketchup, flour, pepper, butter. 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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