Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Heat a gentle fire and prepare a thickening until it is a deep yellow color.
Add the minced rump steak and keep it separated with a fork until hot.
Gradually pour in the boiling water and stew the mixture gently for 10 minutes.
Before serving, stir in a little catsup, chili vinegar, or lemon juice.
Optionally, add minced onion, eschalot, or garlic to the thickening for extra flavor.
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.
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,115 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,226 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rump steak
- Provides the main body and meaty flavor of the dish.
- Boiling water
- Loosens the mixture and turns it into a stewed, moist dish.
The step that matters
Keep the minced steak separated with a fork. If the meat is left in clumps while it heats, parts of it cook unevenly and stay grainy, so stirring it apart keeps the texture fine and uniform.
Swap the onion
The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, garlic):
- Onionthe original
- Broccolifits about as well
- Cucumberfits about as well
- Mustardfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, garlic. 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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