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Steak En Casserole

A casserole of browned round steak pieces simmered in water or milk with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steak En Casserole

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

  1. Cut round steak into serving-sized pieces.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Dip pieces in flour.

Brown and bake

  1. Brown in piping hot fat on both sides quickly.

  2. Place browned steak in a baking dish or casserole.

  3. Add water or milk and a little butter to season.

  4. Cover the dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

  5. If moisture bakes out, add more during baking.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow, covered baking.
Flour
Coats the steak so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Water or milk
Provides moisture so the steak stays juicy and does not dry out in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the baked casserole.

The step that matters

Browning the steak quickly in piping hot fat. Hot fat creates a flavorful browned crust through the Maillard reaction. Crowded or cool pans steam the meat instead, leaving it grey and less flavorful.

“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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