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Stewed Steak

A beef steak stewed with vegetables, mustard sauce, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Brown the steak

  1. Melt the dripping or butter in a stew-pan.

  2. Brown the steak on one side.

  3. Turn the steak to brown the other side.

Make the sauce

  1. In a basin, mix the flour, salt, pepper, cayenne, and mustard with a little cold water until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the water or stock to the mixture.

  3. Pour the sauce over the browned steak.

Add the vegetables

  1. Chop the onion and celery.

  2. Add the chopped onion and celery to the meat.

  3. Scrape the carrot and peel the turnip.

  4. Cut the scraped carrot and peeled turnip into thin ribbons.

  5. Add the inner portions of the carrot and turnip to the saucepan with the steak.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 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

Steak
Becomes tender as it stews slowly in liquid, while its browned surface adds savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the meat and sauce.
Onion
Softens and turns sweet and aromatic as it cooks slowly in the sauce.
Carrot
Turns sweeter and softer as it cooks, adding colour and mild sweetness to the stew.

The step that matters

Gradually add the water or stock to the mixture.. Adding the liquid slowly to a smooth flour paste lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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