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Beefsteak and Mushrooms

A sauce of butter, onion, herbs, flour, water, beef stock, sherry, and mushrooms served over broiled beefsteak.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, sage, and thyme; sauté until the onion is soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until it turns brown.

  4. Add the water and bring to a boil; simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Stir in the beef stock, salt, nutmeg, and sherry wine.

  6. Add the mushrooms and boil for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over a nicely broiled beefsteak.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid, and browning it adds a nutty flavor.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the sauce base.
Beef stock
Adds savory beefy depth to the sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and a fruity, complex aroma to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory base flavor when softened in butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour until brown. Flour must be cooked long enough to lose its raw taste and gain color, but stirred constantly so it does not scorch. Browning it before adding liquid builds flavor and helps the sauce thicken smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sage, thyme, flour, beef, nutmeg, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sage, thyme, flour, beef, nutmeg, sherry. 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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