Name: Beefsteaks Au Beurre De Raifort
Ingredients: 2 beefsteaks; ½ cup grated horseradish; ½ cup unsalted butter, softened; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ½ lemon, juiced

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beefsteaks Au Beurre De Raifort

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare and grill the beefsteaks as you would for English-style beefsteaks.

Make the horseradish butter

Grate the horseradish until you reach the fibrous part.
Mash the grated horseradish with the softened butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice until well combined.

Serve

Serve the beefsteaks topped with the horseradish butter.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,646 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteaks: Provide the main protein, which browns and firms as it grills.
Grated horseradish: Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the beef and butter.
Unsalted butter: Carries the horseradish flavour and gives the topping a smooth, spreadable texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the butter and balances its richness.