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Swiss Steak

A braised steak cooked with onions and tomatoes in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 ↓

Swiss Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the meat and place it on a cutting board.

  2. Dredge the meat with the mixed flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pound the flour into the meat using a wooden potato masher or the edge of a heavy plate.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat a frying pan until very hot and add the fat.

  2. Brown the meat on each side.

  3. Add the onion, boiling water, and tomatoes.

  4. Cover tightly and cook below boiling point for 2 hours.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish; long, gentle cooking turns its connective tissue tender.
Flour
Coats the meat, helping it brown and thickening the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Dripping
Conducts heat for browning the meat and carries flavour through the pan.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid, giving the sauce its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and cook below boiling point. Gentle, low simmering keeps the meat tender and prevents the liquid from reducing too fast. A rolling boil toughens the muscle fibres and can dry out the steak.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, tomato. 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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