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Beefsteak with Cucumbers

A steak served with fried cucumber and onion slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers and onion lengthwise.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cucumbers and onion until golden.

  2. Broil the steak, seasoning it with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the steak in a hot dish with a bit of butter.

  4. Pour the fried cucumbers and onion 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.

  1. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Cucumbers
Frying turns their exterior golden while the flour coating helps them brown and crisp.
Onion
Frying softens its sugars and browns them, adding sweetness alongside the cucumbers.
Flour
Dredging coats the vegetables so they brown more evenly and form a light crust when fried.
Steak
Broiling browns the surface directly, forming the main cooked element the vegetables are served over.
Butter
Melted into the hot dish, it adds fat and richness to the steak.

The step that matters

Fry the cucumbers and onion until golden. Cucumbers hold a lot of water, so if the pan is not hot enough or is crowded, they steam instead of browning. Frying in a hot pan in a single layer gives a golden, crisp surface.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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