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Steak with Favorite Dressing

A sirloin steak served with a dressing of butter, mustard, and walnut catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 849 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Steak with Favorite Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

  1. Broil the steak rare and place it on a very hot, dry platter.

Season and dress

  1. Rub the steak on both sides with the soft butter.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

  3. Spread the mixed English mustard over the steak.

  4. Pour the walnut catsup on top.

Serve

  1. Carve the steak and serve with the dressing.

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. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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

Sirloin steak
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked rare by broiling.
Soft butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface of the steak.
Mixed english mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that contrasts with the rich beef.
Walnut catsup
Adds sweetness and tang that moistens the steak as it is served.

The step that matters

Broil the steak rare and place it on a very hot, dry platter. Broiling to rare depends on heat and timing; overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the meat. A very hot platter keeps the steak warm so it does not cool before the dressings are added.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, walnut. 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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