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To Fry Beefsteaks

Fried beefsteaks served with a creamy gravy made from pan drippings, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Fry Beefsteaks

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the steaks

  1. Heat butter or beef dripping in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the beefsteaks and cook until browned on both sides.

  3. Season with salt and pepper while cooking.

  4. Transfer cooked steaks to a hot dish and cover to keep warm.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, add a few drops of boiling water to the pan drippings.

  2. Stir in flour until smooth, then pour in cream or milk.

  3. Let the gravy boil until thickened, then serve hot with the steaks.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Beefsteak
Provides the meat that browns in the fat and forms the main dish.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings and milk into a smooth, cohesive gravy.
Cream or sweet milk
Adds liquid and richness, giving the gravy a creamy body and mild sweetness.
Butter or beef dripping
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that browns the steak surface and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Let the gravy boil until thickened. Flour needs to reach a boil in the liquid to swell its starch and thicken the gravy fully; stopping early leaves it thin and tasting of raw flour.

“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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