Name: Epicurean Beefsteak
Ingredients: 2 pounds tender steak; ½ cup milk; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon minced parsley; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon tomato sauce

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Epicurean Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Broil the steak until cooked to your liking.
Place the steak on a very hot plate.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolk and mix in the milk, melted butter, and flour until smooth.
Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat until it reaches boiling point, but do not let it boil.
Add the minced parsley, coarse sea salt, and tomato sauce while stirring continuously.
Serve the steak with the sauce and potato balls.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the parsley

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

Capersfits better
Jalapenofits better
Cinnamonfits better
Parsleythe original

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