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Stewed Steak

A stew of rump steak with carrots, turnip, onions, butter, flour, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the skin and fat from the steak.

  2. Wash the carrot and turnip in cold water. Scrape the carrot clean and dice it. Peel the turnip and dice it.

  3. Peel the onions and quarter them.

Brown and stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat. Brown the steak on both sides in the melted butter.

  2. Add the onions, carrot, and turnip to the stewpan with the steak.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and pepper. Gradually stir in the water until smooth.

  4. Pour the mixture into the stewpan with the steak and vegetables, stirring until it boils and thickens.

  5. Simmer gently for one hour.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, sauce-like gravy as it heats.
Butter
Carries the browning of the steak and adds richness to the dish.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Carrot
Softens during stewing and adds gentle sweetness to the gravy.
Turnip
Softens during stewing and adds mild earthy flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the steak on both sides in the melted butter. Browning creates savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. The steak should be dry on the surface and cooked in a single layer so it browns rather than steams.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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