Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Rump-steaks

Stewed rump steaks cooked with onions, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Rump-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Sear the steaks

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan over low heat.

  2. Add the onions and the rump steaks.

  3. Cook the steaks for 5 minutes, then turn them and cook for another 5 minutes.

Stew and season

  1. Boil the button onions for 30 to 60 minutes until tender.

  2. Add the cooking liquid from the button onions to the steaks.

  3. If needed, add broth or boiling water to cover the steaks.

  4. Season with black pepper and coarse sea salt.

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

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Main protein that becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Butter
Fat that starts the cooking and adds richness and browning to the steaks.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding flavor to the stew liquid.
Button onions
Cooked until tender, and their cooking liquid flavors the steaks.

The step that matters

Cook the steaks for 5 minutes, then turn them and cook for another 5 minutes.. Cooking over low heat in butter gives slow browning rather than a hard sear, so turning once helps both sides color evenly without drying the meat. Avoid over-high heat, which can scorch the butter before the steaks are browned.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes