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Baked Round Steak with Tomato Dressing

A round steak baked with tomatoes, onion, and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Round Steak with Tomato Dressing

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the steak

  1. Pound the steak on both sides with the edge of a heavy plate to cut the fibers.

  2. Rub flour thoroughly on each side of the steak.

Sear and bake

  1. Place the steak in a hot baking pan with butter until both sides are well seared.

  2. Cover the steak with tomatoes and grated onion, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours, or until the meat is tender.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Round steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow baking.
Flour
Coats the steak so it browns and thickens the pan juices slightly.
Butter
Fat for searing the steak and adding browning and richness.
Tomatoes
Form the sauce and add moisture and acidity to the braising liquid.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory sweetness to the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Searing the steak in a hot pan. The pan must be hot enough to brown both sides well. Browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, and a pale, steamed surface gives a duller taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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