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Round Steak

A dish of thick steak pieces browned in lard and simmered in hot water to form a rich brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Round Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Beat the steak pieces until almost shredded.

  2. Season the meat with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat lard in an iron skillet and brown the floured meat on both sides.

  2. Add enough hot water to cover the meat and cook slowly, covered, for one hour.

  3. Ensure the gravy is plentiful, thick, and a rich brown color.

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 + flourtop 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

Steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow, covered cooking.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and thickens the pan juices into gravy.
Lard
Fat for browning the floured meat, adding richness and flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the floured meat. Flour-coated meat browned in hot fat develops deep color and flavor through the Maillard reaction. Those browned bits later color and season the gravy, so pale searing leads to a weak, pale gravy.

“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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