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Stewed Rump-steaks

A stew of rump steaks cooked with onions, button onions, broth, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Rump-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Ensure the rump steaks are thicker than for broiling and of uniform thickness.

  2. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a stew-pan and add 2 onions.

  3. Add the rump steaks and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, then turn and cook for another 5 minutes.

Stew

  1. Boil 1 pint of button onions for 30 to 60 minutes.

  2. Add the cooking liquid from the button onions to the steaks; if insufficient, add broth or boiling water to cover.

  3. Add 12 black peppercorns and ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, then simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain off about 1½ cups of the liquid for the sauce.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt 2 ounces of butter, then stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  2. Optionally, add 1 tablespoon of claret or port wine, 1 tablespoon of mushroom ketchup, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper.

  3. Gradually add the reserved liquid, bring to a boil, skim, and strain.

  4. Serve the steaks with the button onions around the dish and pour the gravy over.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onions and steaks brown lightly at the start.
Flour
Thickens the sauce into a smooth gravy when cooked with butter and liquid.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid as they soften.
Button onions
Soften during boiling and add mild sweetness and body to the dish.

The step that matters

Gently simmering the steaks. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the tough rump break down slowly into tenderness. A rolling boil toughens the meat and makes it stringy, so keep the liquid at a bare simmer for the full time.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, flour, port wine, mushroom, ketchup, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, flour, port wine, mushroom, ketchup, 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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