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Stewed Rump-steaks

A slow‑cooked stew of rump steaks with 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: 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-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Heat 1 ounce of butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add 2 onions and cook until softened.

  3. Add the Rump‑Steaks and cook for 5 minutes on each side over low heat.

Cook the onions and steaks

  1. Boil 1 pint of Button Onions for 30 to 60 minutes.

  2. Add the cooking liquid from the onions to the steaks, adding broth or boiling water if needed to cover.

  3. Season with 12 black peppercorns and salt, then simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain off about 1.5 pints of the liquid for the sauce.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt 2 ounces of butter and 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 salt, and ¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper.

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

  4. Serve the steaks with the 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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
Form the main meat that is cooked slowly in the stewing liquid until tender.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding flavour to the stock and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a paste that gives the strained liquid body as gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when browning the steaks and onions and thickening the sauce.
Button onions
Cook until tender and serve alongside the steaks as a mild, sweet accompaniment.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1.5 hours. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the connective tissue in the rump steak break down slowly, producing tender meat without toughening or drying it.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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