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Beefsteak a LA Frying Pan

Pan-fried steak served with a simple gravy made from steak fat, water, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak a LA Frying Pan

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

  1. Heat a frying pan until hot.

  2. Grease the pan with a little fat from the steak to prevent sticking.

  3. Place the steak in the pan and cover it, turning it often.

  4. Season the steak with salt and pepper.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add ½ cup of water.

  2. Make a smooth thickening with ½ teaspoon of flour and add it to the water.

  3. Boil for one minute, then stir in 1 tablespoon of butter.

  4. Pour the gravy over the steak and serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Steak
Is the main protein; turning it often in the pan promotes even cooking and browning.
Flour
Thickens the water into a smooth gravy when it is heated and boiled.
Butter
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a glossy finish to the gravy.

The step that matters

Make a smooth thickening with the flour. Flour clumps if added dry or unmixed to hot liquid. Mixing it smoothly first lets its starch disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens without lumps.

“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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