Name: Sirloin Steak
Ingredients: 2½ pounds sirloin steak; pepper; flour; fat (for roasting); ½ cup boiling water; 1 teaspoon flour (for gravy); coarse sea salt (to taste)

Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sirloin Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Cut off enough steak for two broils and use the rest for roasting.
Trim the fat edges, dust the meat with pepper and flour, and roll it tightly.
Secure the roll with a long skewer.

Cook

Broil the meat over hot coals to seal in the juices.
Place fat on a baking tin, add the meat, and roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven, take out the skewer, and sprinkle with salt.

Make the gravy

Make gravy by adding ½ cup boiling water to the baking pan with 1 teaspoon browned flour; season with salt and pour off excess grease.

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.

Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin steak: Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is seared and roasted.
Flour: Dusted on the meat and used in the gravy, where it thickens the pan juices.
Fat: Placed in the baking tin to help the meat roast and add richness to the pan juices.