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Swiss Steak

A braised round steak cooked in boiling water after frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Swiss Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Season the round steak with salt and pepper.

  2. Dredge the steak well with flour.

  3. Fold the steak together and beat it, dredging with flour each time you fold.

Brown and braise

  1. Fry the steak in a small amount of fat until browned.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling water, cover, and cook for 30 minutes, adding more water as needed.

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

Round steak
Lean, tough cut that becomes tender after long, moist cooking in liquid.
Flour
Coats the surface, helping the steak brown and thickening the cooking liquid.
Fat
Conducts heat for frying and encourages browning on the steak surface.

The step that matters

Fry the steak until browned. Browning the flour-coated surface builds rich flavor and color before the liquid is added. Pale frying leaves the gravy tasting flat.

“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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