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Fried Beefsteak

A steak fried in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, finished briefly in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and sear

  1. Pound the steak thoroughly.

  2. Heat a frying pan over high heat and add the butter.

  3. Once the butter is warmed, add the steak.

  4. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the steak.

  5. Cook until nicely browned, then transfer to a warm platter.

Finish in the oven

  1. Spread a little butter over the steak and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1-2 minutes.

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).

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 protein, which browns on the hot pan surface and gives the dish its body.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and adds richness and browning to the steak's surface.

The step that matters

Cook until nicely browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, fairly dry surface. Crowding the pan or letting the steak sit in its juices steams it instead, leaving it grey and pale rather than well browned.

“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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