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Stewed Steak and Onions

A stew of sliced steak and onions simmered in a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Steak and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. Cut the steak into fillets, each three inches long and half an inch thick, then fry until brown.

Make the gravy

  1. In a pan, heat the dripping, then stir in the flour until it turns brown.

  2. Add the water and bring to a boil.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the steak and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the onions and cloves, then simmer for another 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the cloves, season to taste.

  4. Serve the steak on a hot dish, surround with onions, pour over the gravy, and garnish with parsley.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and soften as they stew, flavouring the gravy.
Flour
Browned in the dripping, it thickens the water into a gravy.
Dripping
Fat that carries the browning and adds savoury richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour until it turns brown. Flour browned in fat gives the gravy colour and a nutty flavour, but it can scorch and taste bitter if left unattended over high heat. Stir constantly and stop once it is evenly browned.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, flour, 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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