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Italian Steaks

Steaks seasoned with mace, pepper, salt, coated in coarse paste, and slow‑cooked for three to four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,433 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Italian Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Rub the steaks with pounded mace, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the steaks in a stewpan and cover with coarse paste.

  3. Cook over hot ashes for three to four hours.

Make the richer sauce

  1. For a richer flavor, prepare as for beef stock or gravy, but use white wine instead of water.

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. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Steaks from the middle of the rump
Provide the meat that becomes tender and flavorful during the long, slow cooking.
White wine (cape or marsala)
Adds acidity and aroma to the liquid used for the richer flavor.
Coarse paste
Encloses the steaks so they cook gently in their own moisture.

The step that matters

Cook over hot ashes for three to four hours. Long, gentle heat lets the tough connective tissue in rump break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender. Heat that is too high or too brief leaves it tough and dry.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, white wine. 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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