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Beefsteak a LA Greque

Beefsteak à la Greque is a Greek-style beefsteak cooked with onions, Marsala wine, Espagnole sauce, stewed tomatoes, and served with fried eggplant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak a LA Greque

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Lightly fry the beefsteaks in oil until browned.

  2. Add the sliced onions and cook until soft.

  3. Pour in the Marsala wine, Espagnole sauce, and stewed tomatoes.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Serve with fried eggplant.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Wine + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteaks
Provide the main meat, which browns on frying and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Marsala wine
Adds a sweet, fortified acidity that deepens the flavour of the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the rich, thickened base that coats the beef and gives body to the sauce.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that balance the richness of the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Lightly fry the beefsteaks until browned. Browning the meat creates deep, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Pan-frying in hot oil without overcrowding gives an even brown crust, and that flavour carries into the simmered sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sauce, tomato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sauce, tomato, pepper. 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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