Skip to main content
Main

Entree of Beef Steaks

Braised beef steaks larded with bacon, seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt, cooked with water, bay leaf, allspice, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, and Port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 of Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

Braise and serve

  1. Braise the steaks in a pot with water, bay leaf, allspice, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, and Port wine.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Provide the main beef that becomes tender and juicy during slow braising.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that melts into the beef as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid, which reduces into a sauce.
Onion
Releases sugars and aromatic flavor into the braising liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook until the steaks are done and the liquid is nearly reduced. Braising in a covered pot with liquid keeps the beef moist, but if the liquid reduces too far the steaks can dry out and the sauce becomes too concentrated. Stopping at nearly reduced keeps a balance of tender meat and flavorful liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, garlic, parsley, port wine, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes