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Beefsteak Fried with Onions

A steak fried and served with a gravy of onions, pepper, salt, water, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Fried with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the steak for broiling by seasoning with pepper and dredging in flour.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan and fry the steak until done, then remove it from the pan.

  2. In the same pan, add the chopped onion, pepper, salt, water, and mustard to the drippings.

  3. Cook for a few minutes, then return the steak to the pan and let it soak in the gravy briefly.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main protein; frying with flour seasoning gives a browned, savory crust.
Flour
Dredging coats the steak so it browns and helps thicken the pan gravy.
Onion
Softens and sweetens in the drippings, adding flavor to the gravy.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the rich fried flavors.

The step that matters

Returning the steak to the gravy. Letting the steak soak too long in the gravy can soften the crust built during frying, so it should only be brief.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, mustard. 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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