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Stewed Rump-steaes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Stewed Rump-steaes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  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 rump steaks.

  3. If needed, add broth or boiling water to cover.

  4. Add 12 corns of black pepper and ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, then simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain off about 1½ pints of the liquid for the sauce.

Make the sauce

  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 of coarse sea salt, and ¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper.

  3. Gradually add the strained liquid, bring to a boil for 15 minutes, skim, and strain again.

Serve

  1. Serve the rump 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. 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. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Corn + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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
Thick, uniform cuts stay tender and juicy through long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when it is melted and cooked into the flour paste.
Flour
Forms a paste with the butter that thickens the strained liquid into a gravy.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding savoury depth to the stewing liquid.
Button onions
Become tender and mild, serving as a side that absorbs flavour from the dish.

The step that matters

Gentle simmering of the steaks. Rump is a tough cut. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly, while a hard boil toughens and dries the meat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, corn, pepper, sauce, flour, port wine, mushroom. 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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