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Steaks with Chesnuts

A thick steak stewed with chestnuts in beef gravy, seasoned with cayenne pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steaks with Chesnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half-fry the steak in a pan.

  2. Dust the steak with flour and place it in a stewpan.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the beef gravy and season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  2. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

  3. Add the peeled chestnuts and let them stew with the steak until well done.

  4. Serve with Espagnole sauce for enhanced flavor if desired.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + chestnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beef + chestnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Chestnut + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main protein; half-frying browns its surface before it stews.
Beef gravy
Supplies the liquid that braises the steak and carries its savory flavor.
Chestnuts
Soften during stewing and add starchy body and mild sweetness to the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Dusting thickens the cooking liquid slightly and helps the steak brown.

The step that matters

Add the peeled chestnuts and let them stew until well done. Chestnuts need sustained gentle simmering to become tender, and the starch they release thickens the gravy. Stopping early leaves them firm and the sauce thin.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, sauce. 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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