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Beefsteak Smothered with Mushrooms

A beef steak cooked with sliced mushrooms, butter, and salt, baked and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak Smothered with Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms.

  2. Remove the pores from the beef-steak mushrooms.

  3. Slice the mushrooms.

  4. Place all mushrooms in a baking pan.

  5. Sprinkle the mushrooms with coarse sea salt.

  6. Add butter to the pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the mushrooms at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Broil the beef steak until nearly done.

  3. Place the steak in the pan with the mushrooms.

  4. Cover the steak with some mushrooms.

  5. Return the pan to the oven for 10 minutes.

  6. Dish the steak and serve immediately.

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. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Their moisture cooks down into the pan, softening the flesh and building a savoury juice.
Beef steak
Supplies the main protein and meaty flavour that the mushrooms accompany.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the mushrooms brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Broil the beef steak until nearly done. The steak finishes cooking again in the oven with the mushrooms, so pulling it when nearly done prevents overcooking. Resting and serving promptly keeps it juicy.

“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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