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Beefsteak and Onions

A beef steak simmered with sliced onions in a savory broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Brown the onions

  1. Dredge sliced onions in flour and fry until slightly browned.

Braise the beef

  1. Transfer onions to a pot with the beef, add salt, pepper, and boiling water to half cover the beef.

  2. Cover the pot and bring to a brisk boil, then reduce heat to simmer gently for 1 to 2 hours.

  3. Alternatively, cover the pot tightly and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven for the same time, turning the meat once.

  4. Add boiling water if the gravy evaporates too quickly.

Serve

  1. Serve the beefsteak topped with the onions and pour the gravy over it.

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

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

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Beef steak
Long, slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savory flavor, which then enriches the gravy.
Flour
Coating the onions lets the flour thicken the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying carries heat evenly and helps the onions brown.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the initial boil. A hard, rolling boil for the full cooking time toughens muscle fibers and evaporates the liquid quickly. A gentle simmer keeps the beef tender and the gravy from reducing too far.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, beef, butter. 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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