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Fried Beefsteak

A steak fried in butter, then finished with a butter, flour, salt, pepper gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Fried Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

  1. Heat a skillet until very hot.

  2. Add a generous amount of butter.

  3. Place the steak in the skillet.

  4. Cover tightly after turning it.

  5. Cover again as soon as possible.

  6. Once cooked, transfer the steak to a hot platter.

Make the gravy

  1. Add a little water to the skillet.

  2. Add a good-sized piece of butter.

  3. Add flour.

  4. Add salt.

  5. Add pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the steak.

  2. Serve while 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. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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 that is seared and then kept moist under a cover.
Butter
Conducts heat into the pan and adds fat and flavour for browning the steak and building the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a gravy as it cooks with the butter and water.

The step that matters

Cover tightly after turning the steak. Covering traps steam around the meat, which can soften the browned crust. Covering promptly after turning keeps the heat and moisture even while the inside finishes cooking.

“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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