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Entree Oe Beef Steaks

Braised beef steaks cooked with bacon, spices, and red port, served with stewed sorrel or endive.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Entree Oe Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Lard the steaks with bacon seasoned with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Braise the steaks in a pot with water, bay leaf, allspice, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, and red port.

  3. Cook until the steaks are done and the liquid is nearly reduced.

Serve

  1. Place the steaks on a dish and strain the cooking liquid over them.

  2. Serve with stewed sorrel or endive around the steaks.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + sorreltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Forms the main meat that is cooked tender by slow braising in liquid.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that moistens the lean beef as it cooks.
Red port
Adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid, which reduces into a richer sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that flavours the braising liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook until the steaks are done and the liquid is nearly reduced. Braising breaks down connective tissue slowly, so the steaks need enough time in gentle liquid to become tender. Reducing the liquid concentrates its flavour, but over-reducing can leave it too thick or salty, so watch it closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, clove, garlic, parsley, sorrel):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, garlic, parsley, sorrel. 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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