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Tough Beef Steak

A boiled beef steak served on toast with optional seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tough Beef Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat a large kettle on the stove until hot, but not scorching.

  2. Add the beef and turn it frequently until well browned.

  3. Pour in the water and let it simmer slowly for about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the beef and season the soup with salt, pepper, catsup, onions, and tomato if desired.

  5. Thicken the soup with flour.

Serve on toast

  1. Chop the beef finely, season with butter, salt, and pepper, and serve on slices of toast.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Browning builds savory flavor, and the beef supplies the main protein of the dish.
Flour
Starch thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the chopped beef served on toast.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the soup.
Tomato
Adds acidity and brightness to the soup.

The step that matters

Browning the beef. Beef must be turned often until well browned, not scorched. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savory flavor, while scorching produces bitter, burnt notes that carry into the soup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, onion, flour, butter. 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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