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Stewed Steak

A stew of rump steak with carrots, turnip, celery, onion, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the skin and fat from the steak.

  2. Wash the carrot, turnip, and celery leaves in cold water.

  3. Scrape the carrot clean and peel the turnip, cutting it in half.

  4. Slice the carrot and turnip into thin ribbons, discarding the center parts.

  5. Peel and shred the onion and celery.

Stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and brown the steak on both sides.

  2. Once the steak is browned, add the vegetables.

  3. Add the onion, celery, and the remaining parts of the carrot and turnip to the stewpan.

  4. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, pepper, and 1 pint of water or stock until smooth.

  5. Stir the mixture into the stewpan and cook until thickened.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, rich sauce.
Butter
Fat for browning the steak, adding color and savory flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the stew.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture in smoothly. Flour mixed into liquid clumps if added raw or unevenly. Mixing it smooth in a separate bowl first lets it disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, butter, flour, 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.

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