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Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

A beefsteak layered with onions, salt pork, and flour, simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the base

  1. Fry the salt pork in a skillet until brown, then remove it from the pan.

  2. Add the sliced onions to the skillet and fry for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer the steak on top of the onions, then add another layer of onions, followed by another slice of steak.

  2. Cover the top with a thick layer of onions and dredge each layer with pepper, salt, and flour.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the layers and cover tightly.

  4. Simmer for half an hour.

Serve

  1. When serving, place the steak in the center of the dish and heap the onions around it.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Steak
Main protein; slow simmering under a lid makes it tender.
Onions
Cook down to sweetness and, with the water, form a moist braising bed.
Salt pork
Renders fat and browns in the pan, flavouring the onions and frying fat.
Flour
Dusted on each layer, it helps thicken the cooking juices into a gravy.
Boiling water
Creates steam and liquid that braises the steak and onions.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling water over the layers and cover tightly.. A tight lid traps steam so the steak braises in moisture instead of drying out. Gentle simmering then breaks down connective tissue slowly, keeping the meat tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, flour. 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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