Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Beep Steak Stewed in Its Own Geavy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim all fat and skin from the steak and cut it into pieces.
Dip the steak in cold water and let it drain briefly.
Sprinkle both sides with pepper and coat thickly with flour.
Cook
Place the steak flat in a well-tinned iron saucepan or stewpan with 1 tablespoon of cold water left in it.
Cook over a gentle fire, simmering for 1.5 to 1.75 hours until tender.
Add salt when it begins to boil and turn the steak when more than half done.
Optionally, add gravy, catsup, and spices to taste.
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.
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rump steak
- Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
- All-purpose flour
- Coats the steak and thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy-like sauce.
The step that matters
Simmer gently until tender. A gentle simmer lets tough connective tissue in the steak slowly break down into gelatin. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can dry out the surface, so keep the heat low and the liquid barely moving.
“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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