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Flank Steak with Tomato Sauce

A flank steak simmered in a tomato sauce made from canned tomatoes, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper 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 ↓

Flank Steak with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Season the flank steak with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Brown the steak in drippings in a skillet.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the can of tomato with the bay leaf, then strain it.

  2. Thicken the strained tomato with butter and flour.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the steak, cover, and let it simmer until tender.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Flank steak
Forms the main protein, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Drippings
Fat in the skillet that browns the steak surface, adding color and savory flavor.
Tomato
Provides the acidity and body of the sauce once heated and strained.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps it feel smooth.
Flour
Thickens the strained tomato into a sauce that clings to the steak.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Flank steak is lean, with tough muscle fibers. Long, gentle simmering in liquid breaks down connective tissue, so rushing it or boiling hard leaves the meat chewy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour. 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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