Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Making Tough Steak Tender
Ingredients
Directions
Combine salad oil, vinegar, and cayenne pepper in a dish.
Place the steak in the mixture and let it marinate for 1 hour.
Turn the steak over and let it marinate for another hour.
Fry or broil the steak as usual.
For best results, the steak can marinate overnight, turning it around 10 o'clock.
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.
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that gently works on the outer surface of the meat.
- Salad oil
- Carries the flavor over the surface and helps keep the meat from drying out.
The step that matters
Turning the steak during marinating. A marinade only affects the surface, so turning the steak lets both sides soak evenly. Acid works on the outer layer, so leaving the steak too long can make its surface mushy or mealy.
“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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