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Beefsteak a LA Frying Pan

A steak cooked in a pan and finished with a simple gravy made from water, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Cook the beef steak in a frying pan.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour ½ cup of hot water into the pan.

  2. Add ½ teaspoon of flour and 1 tablespoon of butter to the water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Pour the gravy over the steak and serve.

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. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 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

Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a gravy as it heats and boils.
Butter
Fat that adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the gravy.
Beef steak
Main protein, browning in the pan and adding meaty flavour to the drippings.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil. Flour only thickens fully once the liquid reaches a boil, so the mixture must be brought to a boil. If the flour is not evenly combined with the water and butter first, it can form lumps that stay in the gravy.

“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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