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Beefsteak Fried with Oxions

A steak fried in lard, served with a gravy of onion, pepper, salt, water, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Fried with Oxions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Prepare the steak for broiling, season with pepper, and roll in flour.

  2. Fry the steak in lard until done, then remove from the pan.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add the chopped onion, pepper, salt, water, and a little mustard to make gravy.

  2. Cook for a few minutes, then return the steak to the gravy and serve.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, seared in lard and then simmered in the gravy to finish.
Flour
Coats the steak so it browns in the fat and helps thicken the pan gravy.
Lard
Fries the steak and carries browning flavour into the pan for the gravy.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding savoury flavour to the gravy.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that balances the richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the steak in lard until done, then remove from the pan. Floured meat browns best in hot fat, and the browned bits left in the pan give the gravy its flavour. Removing the steak at the right point keeps it from overcooking when it returns to the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, mustard. 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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