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Beef Steak Stewed in Its Own Gravy

A beef steak stew cooked slowly in its own gravy with ketchup and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and ketchup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,435 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef Steak Stewed in Its Own Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat and skin from the steak and cut it into pieces.

  2. Dip the steak in cold water and let it drain briefly.

  3. Sprinkle both sides with pepper and flour it generously.

Cook

  1. Place the steak flat in a well-tinned iron saucepan with 1 tablespoon of cold water.

  2. Cook over a very gentle fire, simmering for 1.5 to 1.75 hours until tender.

  3. Add salt when it begins to boil.

  4. Turn the steak when more than halfway done.

  5. Stir in gravy, ketchup, and a pinch of spice.

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. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,207 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

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the steak so it browns and thickens the surrounding liquid into gravy.
Gravy
Adds liquid and savoury depth that forms the sauce around the beef.

The step that matters

Cook over a very gentle fire. Simmering gently keeps the surface from boiling hard, which would toughen the meat fibres. Slow, low heat lets connective tissue soften gradually, so the beef becomes tender rather than dry and stringy.

“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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