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Beefsteak and Potatoes

A casserole of stewed beefsteak and mashed potatoes seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

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

  2. Stew the steak until well cooked.

Assemble and bake

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

  2. Line a baking dish with the mashed potatoes.

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

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a short time.

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 main protein; slow stewing in water makes it tender.
Potatoes
Form the mashed base layer that holds and cushions the meat.
Creamed butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potatoes and the meat.

The step that matters

Stew the steak until well cooked. Stewing breaks down the tough connective tissue in beef slowly in moist heat. Stopping early leaves the meat chewy, and the baking step is too short to tenderize it.

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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