Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Beefsteak Fried
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pan
Heat a frying pan until very hot.
Grease the pan with a little butter or chopped suet.
Cook and serve
Add the steak and turn it until cooked to your liking.
Transfer the steak to a hot platter.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Cover with butter and serve.
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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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Steak
- Is the main protein, cooked directly in the hot pan to brown its surface.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavour, and helps grease the pan for even browning.
The step that matters
Heat the frying pan until very hot. A very hot pan sears the steak surface quickly, creating browning and flavour before the interior overcooks. A cool pan steams the meat and leaves it grey and tough.
“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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