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Beefsteak and Potatoes

A baked beefsteak served atop mashed potatoes seasoned with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the steak

  1. Cut the steak into pieces and place in a stewpan with cold water.

  2. Stew the steak until well cooked.

Assemble the dish

  1. Mash the potatoes with creamed butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Line a baking dish with the mashed potatoes.

  3. Place the cooked steak in the dish, seasoning with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a little while.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. 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

Steak
Provides the meat filling, which becomes tender as it stews in water.
Potatoes
Form the mashed base, giving a soft, starchy layer that holds the steak.
Creamed butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, moist mash.

The step that matters

Stew the steak until well cooked. Slow cooking in liquid breaks down the tough connective tissue in the meat, so the steak becomes tender. The steak must be fully cooked before it goes into the dish, because the short baking step will not cook it through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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