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Beef Steaks Slewed with Cucumber

A dish of beef rump steaks served with a cucumber and onion gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Steaks Slewed with Cucumber

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers and onions

  1. Pare the cucumbers and cut them into slices about an inch long.

  2. In a stewpan, add the cucumbers, sliced onions, and butter. Fry until brown.

  3. Add the gravy and dust in a little flour.

  4. When the cucumbers are tender, skim off the fat.

Cook and serve

  1. Season the rump steaks with white pepper and salt, then fry quickly in butter.

  2. Place the cooked steaks in a dish and pour the cucumbers, onions, and gravy over them.

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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Soften during slow cooking and form the bulk of the vegetable sauce.
Onions
Brown in butter to add sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Gravy
Provides the liquid base that carries the flavor of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the sauce clings to the steaks.
Rump steaks
Form the main protein, seared quickly to brown the outside while staying tender.

The step that matters

Frying the steaks quickly. High heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavor. Overcooking toughens the meat, so the steaks should be fried briefly and kept tender.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, butter, 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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