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Swiss Steak

A slow‑cooked beef steak simmered with onions, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Swiss Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

  1. Remove the bone from the steak if using sirloin.

  2. Hack the steak two ways against the grain on both sides.

  3. Spread soft butter on both sides of the steak and work the butter into the crevices.

  4. Generously coat the steak in flour on both sides.

Bake

  1. Spread chopped white onions over the steak to a thickness of 1 inch.

  2. Place the steak in a casserole or covered pan.

  3. Simmer the steak in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on thickness.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the steak from the oven.

  2. Sprinkle the steak with salt and pepper.

  3. Garnish the steak with parsley.

  4. Serve the juices from the pan as is or thicken 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or round steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the steak and thickens the pan juices as they cook.
Soft butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat's surface and crevices.
White onions
Add sweetness and moisture as they soften into the juices.

The step that matters

Hack the steak against the grain. Cutting across the muscle fibres breaks up tough connective tissue, so the meat becomes more tender during the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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