Name: Steak with Mushrooms
Ingredients: 1 to 2 inches thick steak; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Mushrooms; Fat from steak; Milk

Why it works: Pepper and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Steak with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Preheat a skillet until smoking hot.
Grease the skillet with fat from the steak.
Season the steak with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Sear the steak until brown on both sides, turning constantly.
Once well seared, cook on low heat for 1½ hours.
Rinse and drain the mushrooms, then cut them in half.
Add the mushrooms to the skillet with the steak about an hour before serving.
When ready to serve, remove the steak and prepare a milk gravy with the mushrooms.
Keep the meat well covered while cooking.

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.

Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,231 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).