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Hump- or Beef-steak, Stewed

A stew of rump or beef steak with onions, turnips, carrots, butter, water, ketchup, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Hump- or Beef-steak, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the steaks into convenient-sized pieces and brown them in butter on both sides.

  2. Clean and peel the vegetables.

  3. Slice the onions and carrots, and dice the turnips.

  4. Fry the vegetables in the same fat used for the steaks.

Simmer

  1. Transfer everything to a saucepan and add water.

  2. Simmer gently for 2-3 hours.

  3. Skim the surface.

  4. Add salt, pepper, and ketchup.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with 2 tablespoons of cold water and add to the pot.

  2. Let it boil for 1-2 minutes before serving.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or rump steak
Long gentle simmering softens the connective tissue, making the meat tender and juicy.
Onions
Softened and cooked down, they add sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Carrots
They release natural sweetness and firm body into the stew as they cook.
Butter
Browning the meat in it builds savory flavor and carries aroma into the vegetables.
Flour
Its starch swells in the hot liquid and thickens the stew into a rich sauce.
Ketchup
Adds tomato acidity and sweetness that rounds out the savory broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture and boiling. Flour mixed with cold water first prevents lumps. The stew must then boil so the starch swells fully and thickens, and the raw flour taste cooks off.

Swap the onion

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

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

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