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Beefsteak with Mushrooms

Beefsteak served with sautéed mushrooms cooked in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean and wash the mushrooms thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a stew pan with just the water that clings to them.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with flour and stir lightly.

  4. When the mushrooms are half cooked, add the butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the beef steaks to your desired doneness.

  2. Place the cooked steaks on a heated dish and season with salt and pepper, basting with butter.

  3. Pour the mushrooms over the steaks and 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. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release their own moisture, which gently cooks them and forms the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the juices from the mushrooms into a light, smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and is basted over the steaks for a glossy finish.
Beef steaks
Provide the main protein, browned by broiling for savory flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the mushrooms. Flour must be stirred in evenly over the mushrooms before liquid builds up, otherwise it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of smooth.

“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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