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Beefsteak and Mushrooms

A beefsteak served with a mushroom sauce made from onions, herbs, flour, stock, sherry, and canned mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, sage, and thyme.

  3. Sauté until the onion is soft.

  4. Stir in the flour.

  5. Cook until the sauce turns brown.

  6. Gradually add the water and bring to a boil.

  7. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  8. Add the beef stock, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and sherry wine. Mix well.

  9. Stir in the canned mushrooms.

  10. Boil for 10 minutes.

Cook the steak

  1. Broil the beefsteak on a greased grill over hot coals until cooked to your liking.

  2. Place the steak on a warmed platter, cooked side down, to catch the juices.

  3. Return the steak to the grill to cook the other side.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and carries the onion flavor at the start of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it turn brown as it cooks.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the sauce.
Beef stock
Adds savory beef flavor to the sauce.
Beefsteak
Is the main protein, cooked over direct heat until done to taste.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until the flour turns brown. Cooking flour in fat until it browns develops nutty, toasted flavor and color, but if it burns it turns bitter. Stir constantly over steady medium heat and watch closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sage, thyme, flour, beef, nutmeg, sherry):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sage, thyme, flour, beef, nutmeg, sherry. 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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