Name: Fried Beefsteak with Wine
Ingredients: steak; ½ cup port wine; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Port wine and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,804 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Fried Beefsteak with Wine

Ingredients

steak
½ cup port wine
pepper
coarse sea salt

Directions

Cook the steak

Fry the steak over high heat until browned.
Place the cooked steak in a warm dish.

Make the gravy and serve

Add port wine, pepper, and salt to the pan gravy.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Pour the gravy over the steak and serve 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.

Port wine + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,804 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak: Browning in the pan gives it a savory crust and main body of the dish.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and acidity to the pan gravy, balancing the rich meat.

“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.