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Stewed Rump Steaks

A stew of browned rump steaks simmered with onions, pepper, salt, ketchup, wine, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Rump Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and simmer

  1. Fry the steaks in butter for a few minutes until browned on each side.

  2. Add the boiling liquid from the boiled onions until the steaks are just covered.

  3. Add the black peppercorns and salt, then let simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain the gravy and place the steaks in a dish.

Make the gravy

  1. In a separate pan, rub together the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add pepper, salt, ketchup, and wine, then mix well.

  3. Gradually add the strained gravy and simmer for 15 minutes until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the onions in the gravy and pour over the steaks.

  2. Garnish with horseradish.

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. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ketchup + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Long, gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and moist.
Butter
Fat that browns the steaks and carries flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the gravy when cooked with the butter and liquid.
Button onions
Soften in the gravy, adding mild sweetness and soft texture.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the strained gravy to the butter and flour. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour starch dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ketchup, port wine, horseradish. 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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