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Fried Beefsteaks

Fried beefsteaks cooked with fat, salt, pepper, and a gravy of boiling water or catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Beefsteaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut some fat from the steak and place it in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. If the steaks are tough, beat them with a rolling pin.

Fry the steak

  1. Once the fat is boiling hot, add the steak to the pan.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Fry the steak briskly until one side is done.

  4. Sprinkle a little pepper over the steak.

  5. Sprinkle a little salt over the steak.

  6. Turn the steak over.

  7. Cook to your desired doneness, either rare or well-done.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Transfer the steak to a hot dish.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of boiling water or catsup to the pan to make gravy.

  3. Let the gravy boil once.

  4. Pour the gravy over the steak.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, cooked quickly over high heat to brown the surface.
Fat from the steak
Heats in the pan to fry the steak and carry heat evenly to its surface.
Boiling water or catsup
Deglazes the pan's browned bits and forms the gravy poured over the steak.

The step that matters

Fry the steak briskly once the fat is boiling hot. Adding the steak to hot fat sears the surface quickly, browning it and sealing in juices. Starting in cool fat lets the steak steam and turn grey and dry.

“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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