Name: Broiled Beef Steaks
Ingredients: small fat rump of beef; pepper; coarse sea salt; gravy; horseradish, scraped; eschalots, chopped; pickles; onions, sliced; batter for frying

Why it works: Horseradish and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the fillet and the first two or three steaks from the rump of beef.
Cut the remainder into steaks and remove the skin from the fat.
Beat the steaks with a chopper and season with pepper and coarse sea salt just before grilling.
Preheat the grill and ensure it is well cleaned.
Grill the steaks, turning them frequently until cooked to your liking.
Serve on a hot dish with a little gravy, scraped horseradish, chopped eschalots, and pickles on small plates.
Offer oyster sauce in a sauce boat or serve with fried onion slices dipped in batter.

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.

Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,784 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,646 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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