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Spanish Steak

A steak baked with onions, tomatoes, and cheese, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the steak with salt and pepper, then rub with butter.

  3. Place the steak in a sheet iron baking pan with water.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Cover the steak with sliced onions and cook for an additional 45 minutes.

  3. Add sliced tomatoes and cook until tender.

  4. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake until brown.

  5. Serve with gravy made from the pan juices.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender with slow, moist cooking.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the surface brown.
Sliced onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook over the steak, adding aroma.
Sliced tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that mingle with the pan juices.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Cook the steak in water before adding toppings. Steak this thick is tough and needs long, moist heat to break down connective tissue. Cooking it covered in liquid first keeps it from drying out before the browning step.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, butter, tomato, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, butter, tomato, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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