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Spanish Steak

A thick round steak cooked slowly with onions, tomatoes, and bacon fat or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Spanish Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the steak with olive oil and lemon juice the night before.

Braise

  1. Brown the steak in a very hot frying pan on both sides.

  2. Cover the steak with sliced onion.

  3. Pour the canned tomatoes over the steak and add bacon fat or butter.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, cover securely, and cook slowly on the stove for 2 to 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the steak whole, using the juices from the frying pan for gravy.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during long slow cooking.
Canned tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, forming the sauce that braises the steak.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens into the sauce.
Bacon fat or butter
Adds fat for richness and helps browning in the pan.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and begins to tenderize the surface.

The step that matters

Cover securely and cook slowly. Long, gentle, covered cooking lets tough connective tissue in the round steak break down into tender meat. Too much heat or an uncovered pan lets liquid evaporate and leaves the meat dry and chewy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, lemon, tomato, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, lemon, tomato, butter, pepper. 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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